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'TER,  PRINTERS,  4 SPRING 


The  Errors. of  Prohibition. 


AN  ARGUMENT 

DELIVERED  IN  THE 


REPRESENTATIVES’  HALL,  BOSTON, 


APRIL  3,  1867, 


BEFORE  A 

JOINT  SPECIAL  COMMITTEE  OE  THE  GENERAL 
COURT  OE  MASSACHUSETTS. 


No' 

By  JOHN  A.  ANDREW. 


BOSTON: 

TICKNOR  & FIELDS,  124  TREMONT  ST 
1 8 6 7. 


. 


' 


- 


INTRODUCTORY. 


At  the  present  annual  session  of  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts,  commencing  in  January,  1867,  petitions  were 
presented  by  Alpheus  Hardy  and  others,  praying  for  enact- 
ment of  a judicious  license  law  for  the  regulation  and 
control  of  the  sale  of  spirituous  and  fermented  liquors  in 
the  Commonwealth.  The  number  of  these  Petitioners  during 
the  session  already  (April,  1867,)  comprises  thirty  thousand 
legal  voters,  and  is  increasing  daily. 

A petition  was  also  presented  by  the  principal  inn-keepers 
in  the  city  of  Boston,  praying  for  such  changes  in  existing 
laws  concerning  the  sale  of  wines  and  liquors  as  shall  allow 
them  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  guests  of  their  houses,  yet 
under  such  excise  and  regulation  and  subject  to  such  super- 
vision as  shall  be  deemed  needful  for  the  public  good. 

A further  petition  was  presented  by  the  officers  and  trus- 
tees of  the  Massachusetts  College  of  Pharmacy,  representing 
that  under  the  present  statutes  it  is  impossible  legally  to 
conduct  that  business  and  perform  its  duties  to  the  medical 
profession  and  the  sick,  and  praying  for  such  amendment  of 
the  law  as  that  apothecaries  may  be  enabled  to  conduct  their 
business  in  a legal  manner. 

Various  petitions,  numerously  signed,  were  also  presented 
to  the  General  Court,  remonstrating  against  any  amendment 
of  the  existing  prohibitory  statutes. 


4 


All  these  petitions  were  referred  ;o  a Joint  Special  Com- 
mittee of  the  two  branches  of  the  legislature,  composed  of 

Messrs.  Morse,  of  Norfolk, 

Alexander,  of  Hampden, 

Fay,  of  Suffolk, 

Dow,  of  Middlesex, 

Swan,  of  Bristol, 

On  tie  part  of  the  Senate  ; and 
Messrs.  Jewell,  of  Boston, 

Aldrich,  of  Worcester, 

Shexman,  of  Lowell, 

Wright,  of  Lawrence, 

Ayery,  of  Braintree, 

Flinn,  of  Chatham, 

McClellan,  of  Grafton, 

Bartlett,  of  Roxbury, 

Madden,  of  Boston, 

On  the  part  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

The  Petitioners  were  represented  before  the  Committee  by 
Hon.  John  A.  Andrew  and  Hon.  Linus  Child,  as  counsel; 
and  the  Remonstrants  were  in  like  manner  represented  before 
the  Committee  by  Hon.  Asahel  Huntington,  Rev.  A.  A. 
Miner,  D.  D.,  and  William  B.  Spooner,  Esq.,  as  counsel. 

The  hearings  were  continued  for  four  days  in  each  week, 
(besides  two  evening  sessions,)  beginning  February  19th, 
and  ending  April  3d,  at  first  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  and 
afterwards  in  the  Representatives’  Hall,  in  the  State  House, 
at  Boston. 

The  opening  argument  for  the  Petitioners  was  made  by 
Hon.  Linus  Child,  and  the  following  witnesses  were  called, 
sworn  and  examined  in  their  behalf : — 


5 


John  Q.  Adams,  Esq.,  of  Quincy, 

(Trial  Justice  for  Norfolk  County.) 

Rev.  Nehemiah  Adams,  D.  D.,  of  Boston. 

Prof.  Louis  Agassiz,  of  Cambridge, 

(Prof,  of  Zoology  and  Geology  in  the  Scientific  School  of  Harvard  College.) 

Rev.  William  R.  Alger,  of  Boston. 

Joseph  Andrews,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  D.  D.,  of  New  Haven,  Conn., 

(Professor  of  Didactic  Theology  in  Yale  College.) 

Rev.  Charles  F.  Barnard,  of  Boston. 

Dr.  George  F.  Bigelow,  of  Boston, 

(Secretary  of  the  Howard  Benevolent  Association,  and  Physician  at  the 
Washingtonian  Home.) 

Prof.  Henry  J.  Bigelow,  M.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Professor  of  Surgery  in  the  Medical  School  of  Harvard  College.) 

Hon.  Henry  W.  Bishop,  of  Lenox, 

(Ex-Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.) 

Rev.  George  W.  Blagden,  D.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Senior  Pastor  of  the  Old  South  Church.) 

Hon.  J.  C.  Blaisdell,  of  Fall  River. 

Rev.  John  A.  Bolles,  D.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Rector  of  the  Church  of  the  Advent.) 

Prof.  Francis  Bowen,  of  Cambridge, 

(Alford  Professor  of  Natural  Theology,  Moral  Philosophy  and  Civil  Polity 
in  Harvard  College.) 

Rev.  Robert  Brady,  of  Boston, 

(Pastor  of  St.  Mary’s  Church.) 

Augustus  O.  Brewster,  Esq.,  of  Boston, 

(Ex-Assistant  District-Attorney  for  Suffolk  County.) 

A.  M.  Brownell,  Esq.,  of  New  Bedford, 

(Municipal  Marshal  of  that  city.) 

Hon.  E.  P.  Buffington,  of  Fall  River, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  that  city.) 

Brigadier-General  Isaac  S.  Burrell,  of  Roxbury, 

(Ex-Municipal  Marshal  of  that  city.) 

Rev.  B.  F.  Clark,  of  Chelmsford. 

Prof.  Edward  H.  Clarke,  M.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Professor  of  Materia  Medicain  the  Medical  School  of  Harvard  College.) 

Hon.  John  H.  Clifford,  of  New  Bedford, 

(Ex-Governor  and  Ex-Attorney-General  of  the  Commonwealth.) 

John  C.  Cluer,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Hon.  Charles  G.  Davis,  of  Plymouth. 


6 


E.  Hasket  Derby,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Rev.  Manassas  Doherty,  of  Cambridge. 

Hon.  J.  H.  Duncan,  of  Haverhill. 

Right  Rev.  Manton  Eastburn,  D.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  the  Diocese  of  Massachusetts.) 

Frank  Edson,  Esq.,  of  Hadley, 

(Chairman  of  the  Selectmen  and  Liquor  Agent  of  that  town.) 

Rev.  Theodore  Edson,  D.  D.,  of  Lowell. 

Rev.  George  E.  Ellis,  D.  D.,  of  Charlestown. 

Rev.  Rufus  Ellis,  of  Boston. 

M.  J.  Fassin,  Esq.,  of  New  York. 

Hon.  Francis  B.  Fay,  of  Lancaster, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  Chelsea,  and  Trustee  of  the  State  Reform  School  for  Girls 
at  Lancaster.) 

Hon.  Henry  F.  French,  of  Cambridge, 

(Ex-Assistant-District-Attorney  for  Suffolk  County.) 

Addison  Gage,  Esq , of  West  Cambridge. 

Thomas  Gaffield,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Hon.  E.  B.  Gillette,  of  Westfield, 

(District-Attorney  for  the  Western  District.) 

Albert  G.  Goodwin,  Esq., 

(Secretary'  of  the  Boston  Provident  Association.) 

Hon.  Alpheus  Hardy,  of  Boston. 

Benjamin  W.  Harris,  Esq.,  of  Milton, 

(Ex-District-Attorney  for  the  South-Eastern  District.) 

Rev.  Michael  Hartney,  of  Salem. 

Rev.  George  F.  Haskins,  of  Boston, 

(Head  of  the  House  of  the  Angel  Guardian.) 

Rev.  James  A.  Healey,  of  Boston. 

Rev.  Frederick  H.  Hedge,  D.  D.,  of  Brookline, 

(Prof,  of  Ecclesiastical  History  in  the  Divinity  School  of  Harvard  College. ) 

Henry  Hill,  Esq.,  of  Braintree. 

Hon.  George  S.  Hillard,  of  Boston, 

(Lnited  States  District-Attorney  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts.) 

Prof.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  M.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Parkman  Professor  of  Anatomy  and  Physiology  in  the  Medical  School 
of  Harvard  College.) 

Prof.  E.  N.  Horsford,  of  Cambridge, 

(Ex-Rumford  Professor  of  the  Application  of  Science  to  the  Art  of  Life  in 
the  Scientific  School  of  Harvard  College.) 

Capt.  David  Hoyt,  of  Deerfield. 


7 


Eev.  G.  B.  Ide,  D.  D.,  of  Springfield. 

Prof.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  M.  D.,  of  Boston. 

Prof.  J.  B.  S.  Jackson,  M.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Shattuek  Professor  of  Morbid  Anatomy  in  the  Medical  School  of  Harvard 
College.) 

Eev.  John  Jones,  of  Pelham. 

Col.  John  Kurtz,  of  Boston, 

(Chief  of  Police  of  the  city.) 

Wm.  M.  Lathrop,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Eev.  Thomas  E.  Lambert,  of  Charlestown. 

Louis  Lapham,  Esq.,  of  Fall  Eiver, 

(Judge  of  the  Police  Court  of  that  city.) 

Hon.  George  Lewis,  of  Boxbury, 

(Mayor  of  that  city.) 

Hon.  D.  Waldo  Lincoln,  of  Worcester, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  that  city.) 

Hon.  Frederic  W.  Lincoln,  Jr.,  of  Boston, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  the  city.) 

Eev.  Increase  S.  Lincoln,  of  Warwick. 

Eev.  Samuel  K.  Lothrop,  D.  D.,  of  Boston. 

Eev.  J.  C.  Lovejoy,  of  Cambridge. 

Hon.  Alfred  Macy,  of  Nantucket, 
enry  A.  Marsh,  Esq.,  of  Amherst. 

Samuel  F.  McCleary,  Esq.,  of  Boston, 

(City  Clerk.) 

Eev.  Lawrence  McMahon,  of  New  Bedford. 

Hon.  William  S.  Messervy,  of  Salem, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  that  city.) 

Eev.  Bollin  H.  Neale,  D.  D.,  of  Boston. 

Lyman  Nichols,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Hon.  Otis  Norcross,  of  Boston, 

(Mayor  of  the  city.) 

Eev.  J.  B.  O’Hagan,  of  Boston. 

P.  L.  Page,  Esq.,  of  Pittsfield, 

(Judge  of  the  Police  Court  of  that  town.) 

Hon.  Henry  W.  Paine,  of  Cambridge. 

Hon.  John  C.  Park,  of  Boston. 

Charles  Henry  Parker,  Esq.,  of  Boston, 

(Manager  of  the  Suffolk  Institution  for  Savings.) 


8 


Hon.  Joel  Parker,  of  Cambridge, 

(Royall  Professor  in  the  Law  School  of  Harvard  College;  formerly  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  Hew  Hampshire.) 

E.  B.  Patch,  Esq.,  of  Lowell. 

Prof.  Andrew  P.  Peabody,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  of  Cambridge, 

(Preacher  to  the  University,  and  Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Doctrine 
and  Morals  in  Harvard  College.) 

Hon.  J.  H.  Perry,  of  New  Bedford, 

(Mayor  of  that,  city.) 

Chase  Philbrick,  Esq.,  of  Lawrence, 

(Municipal  Marshal  of  that  city.) 

Edward  L.  Pierce,  Esq.,  of  Milton, 

(District-Attorney  for  the  South-Eastern  District.) 

Rev.  John  Power,  of  Worcester. 

Rev.  George  Putnam,  D.  D.,  of  Roxbury. 

Hon.  George  C.  Richardson,  of  Cambridge, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  that  city;  Pres,  of  the  Board  of  Trade  of  the  city  of  Boston.) 

Rev.  John  P.  Robinson,  of  Boston. 

Hon.  Charles  Russell,  of  Princeton. 

Hon.  Charles  Theodore  Russell,  of  Cambridge, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  that  city.) 

Hon.  George  P.  Sanger,  of  Boston, 

(District-Attorney  for  Suffolk  County.) 

Edward  A.  Savage,  Esq.,  of  Boston, 

(Deputy-Chief  of  Police  of  the  city.) 

Rev.  Thomas  Shehan,  of  Taunton. 

J.  E.  Souchard,  Esq.,  French  Consul  at  Boston. 

Oliver  Stackpole,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 

Prof.  D.  Humphreys  Storer,  M.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Professor  of  Obstetrics  and  of  Medical  Jurisprudence  in  the  Medical  School 
of  Harvard  College.) 

Rev.  Patrick  Strain,  of  Lynn. 

Rev.  Edward  T.  Taylor,  D.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Pastor  at  the  Seamens’  Bethel  in  that  city.) 

Minot  Tirrell,  Jr.,  Esq.,  of  Lynn. 

Rev.  John  Todd,  D.  D.,  of  Pittsfield. 

Rev.  John  E.  Todd,  of  Boston. 

Rev.  Joseph  Tracy,  D.  D.,  of  Beverly, 

(Lately  Editor  of  the  Boston  Recorder.) 

Hon.  George  B.  Upton,  of  Boston. 

Theodore  Voelckers,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 


9 


Hon.  G.  Washington  Warren,  of  Charlestown, 

(Judge  of  the  Police  Court,  and  Ex-Mayor  of  that  city.) 

Hon.  Emory  Washburn,  of  Cambridge, 

(Bussey  Professor  in  the  Law  School  of  Harvard  College;  Ex-Governor  of 
the  Commonwealth;  and  formerly  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.) 

Rev.  E.  M.  P.  Wells,  of  Boston, 

(Rector  of  St.  Stephen’s  Church.) 

Proff  James  C.  White,  M.  D.,  of  Boston, 

(Assistant-Professor  of  Chemistry  in  Harvard  College.) 

H.  W.  B.  Wightman,  Esq.,  of  Chelmsford, 

(Treasurer  of  the  Chelmsford  Foundry  Company.) 

Hon.  Joseph  M.  Wightman,  of  Boston, 

(Ex-Mayor  of  the  city.) 

Rev.  Thomas  Worcester,  D.  D.,  of  Boston. 

In  support  of  the  petition  of  the  College  of  Pharmacy, 
which  was  represented  by  Messrs.  Thomas  Hollis,  President, 
Samuel  M.  Colcord,  Vice-President,  and  Henry  W.  Lincoln, 
Recording  Secretary,  as  a special  committee  of  its  Board  of 
Trustees,  the  following  gentlemen  appeared  as  witnesses  : — 


Charles  Edward  Buckingham,  M.  D., 

(Surgeon  of  City  Hospital,  Boston.) 

Charles  C.  Bixby,  of  North  Bridgewater, 

(Apothecary.) 

Isaac  T.  Campbell,  of  Boston, 

(Examiner  of  Drugs.) 

S.  M.  Colcord,  of  Boston,  Apothecary, 

(Vice-President  of  Massachusetts  College  of  Pharmacy.) 

Thomas  Hollis,  Apothecary,  Boston, 

(President  of  the  Massachusetts  College  of  Pharmacy.) 

James  L.  Hunt,  Apothecary, 

(Town  Liquor  Agent  of  Hingham.) 

Henry  W.  Lincoln,  Apothecary,  Boston, 

(Recording  Secretar}'  of  Massachusetts  College  of  Pharmacy.) 

William  T.  Rand,  Dedham, 

(Formerly  an  apothecary.) 

Sampson  Reed,  Druggist, 

(Formerly  an  Alderman  of  Boston.) 

Frank  W.  Simmons,  Apothecary,  Boston. 


2 


10 


The  opening  argument  for  the  Remonstrants  was  then 
made  by  Hon.  Asahel  Huntington,  who  was  followed  by 
William  B.  Spooner,  Esq.,  and  after  the  examination  of 
their  witnesses,  the  Rev.  A.  A.  Miner,  on  Tuesday,  April  2d, 
delivered  the  closing  argument  in  their  behalf.  He  was 
followed,  on  Wednesday,  April  3,  by  Hon.  John  A.  Andrew, 
in  behalf  of  the  Petitioners,  who  closed  the  hearing  with  the 
following 


ARGUMENT. 


Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: — 

A measure  so  extreme  and  unusual  as  the 
statute  of  Massachusetts — prohibiting  the  sale  of 
spirituous  and  fermented  liquors,  notwithstanding 
that  they  are  confessedly  commercial  articles — can 
rest  only  on  some  proposition  in  science  or  morals 
of  corresponding  sweep.  And,  although  our  legis- 
lation is  not  entirely  consistent  in  its  details  with 
any  theory,  yet  it  does  in  fact  rest  on  a theory 
which  involves  these  two  positions,  viz. : The 
essentially  poisonous  character  of  alcoholic  bever- 
ages, and  The  immorality  of  their  use.  It  assumes 
that  any  law  which  permits  (and  regulates)  their 
sale  is  " immoral  and  an  educator  of  immorality.”  * 

I. 

The  advocates  of  Prohibition  base  their  argument 
in  part  upon  the  assumption  that  alcohol  is  a poi- 
son, in  the  sense  in  which  strychnine  or  arsenic  is 
poison , to  be  administered  to  the  human  system  only 

* Minority  Report  of  1866,  House  Document  359,  p.  33. 


12 


under  the  restrictions  applicable  to  the  administra- 
tion of  fatal  drugs. 

They  affirm  this  of  alcohol  taken  in  whatever 
doses,  averring,  as  it  has  been  concisely  expressed 
by  another,  " that  whatever  is  true  of  the  excessive 
use  of  alcohol  is  true  also  in  proportionate  degree 
of  the  moderate  and  occasional  use.v  Dr.  Car- 
penter, Registrar  of  the  University  of  London,  and 
the  leading  scientific  authority  with  the  advocates 
of  prohibition,  declares  in  set  terms  that  " The 
action  of  Alcohol  upon  the  animal  body  in  health 
is  essentially  poisonous. ” 

Let  us  therefore  at  the  outset  investigate  this 
assumption  that  alcohol  is  necessarily  a poison, 
with  an  eye  to  see,  (in  the  language  of  Liebig 
concerning  tea  and  coffee,  substances  akin  to, 
though  differing  somewhat  frojn,  alcohol  in  their 
working  on  the  human  frame,)  " whether  it  depend 
on  sensual  and  sinful  inclinations  merely  that  every 
people  of  the  globe  has  appropriated  some  such 
means  of  acting  on  the  nervous  life.”  * 

Twenty  years  ago  alimentary  substances  were 
classified  by  Liebig  as  Respiratory  Food,  and  as 
Plastic  Food,  the  line  of  distinction  between  them, 
in  composition,  being  the  absence  or  presence  of 

* Liebig’s  Letters  on  Chemistry,  3d  London  edition,  p.  456. 


13 


nitrogen,  and  the  line  of  distinction  between  them 
in  their  transformation  in  the  human  body,  being 
according  t'o  Liebig’s  theory,  that  though  both  are 

burned  by  the  inhaled  oxygen,  yet  the  former  is 

% 

burned  directly  by  it,  without  previous  transforma- 
tion into  the  human  tissues,  while  part  of  the  lat- 
ter, before  final  consumption,  becomes  human 
tissue. 

Concisely  stated,  Liebig’s  two  classes  of  food 
are,  therefore, 

I.  Certain  non-azotized  substances,  which,  from 
their  large  amount  of  carbon,  serve  (as  fuel,)  to 
keep  up  the  animal  heat,  and  which  he  names  the 
elements  of  respiration. 

II.  Certain  nitrogenized  substances,  which  are 
adapted  to  the  formation  of  blood,  (out  of  that, 
muscle,  and  the  tissues,)  and  which  he  terms  the 
plastic  elements  of  nutrition. 

Liebig’s  theory  of  combustion  or  oxidation,  and 
the  sharpness  of  his  distinction  between  his  classes, 
have  been  modified  by  recent  scientific  disputants; 
but  his  position  that  alcoholic  beverages  taken  in 
fit  combinations,  and  in  due  moderation,  perform 
the  functions  of  food,  remains  unshaken. 


14 


He  says,-*- 

“ Besides  fat  and  those  substances  which  contain  carbon 
and  the  elements  of  water,  man  consumes,  in  the  shape  of 
the  alcohol  of  fermented  liquors,  another  substance,  which 
in  his  body,  plays  exactly  the  same  part  as  the  non-nitrogen- 
ized  constituents  of  food. 

“ The  alcohol,  taken  in  the  form  of  wine  or  any  other 
similar  beverage,  disappears  in  the  body  of  man.  Although 
the  elements  of  alcohol  do  not  possess  by  themselves  the 
property  of  combining  with  oxygen  at  the  temperature  of 
the  body,  and  forming  carbonic  acid  and  water,  yet  alcohol 
acquires,  by  contact  with  bodies  in  the  condition  of  erema- 
causis  or  absorption  of  oxygen,  such  as  are  invariably  pres- 
ent in  the  body,  this  property  to  a far  higher  degree  than  is 
known  to  occur  in  the  case  of  fat  and  other  non-nitrogenized 
substances.”  * 

!N"ot  only  have  many  physiologists  and  chemists 
adopted  this  general  theory,  but  even  those  others, 
who  modify  the  theory  of  Liebig  as  stated  by 
himself,  nevertheless  classify  alcoholic  drinks  in 
the  category  of  foods.f 


* Animal  Chemistry,  3d  edition : London,  pp.  97,  98. 
f See,  among  other  authorities,  Clinical  Medicine,  by  W.  T.  Gairdner, 
Physician  to  the  Royal  Infirmary  of  Edinburgh,  and  Lecturer  on  the 
Practice  of  Medicine ; and  Human  Physiology,  Statical  and  Dynamical ; 
or<  the  Conditions  and  Course  of  the  Life  of  Man,  by  Prof.  John  W. 
Draper,  pp.  27,  28. 

See,  also,  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  for  January  31, 
1867,  which  contains  a brief  account  of  Dr.  Frankland’s  deductions  from 
his  own  experiments  and  those  of  Professors  Fiqk  and  Wislicenus,  con- 
cerning the  capacity  of  non-azotized  food  to  supply  power  and  repair 
waste. 


15 


In  the  result  which  we  shall  reach  concerning 
alcohol,  it  makes  no  practical  difference  whether 
Liebig’s  division  of  food  stands  or  falls.  If  alco- 
hol be  food,  it  matters  not  to  the  question  of  a 
Prohibitory  Law,  whether  it  be  Respiratory  Food 
or  Plastic  Food. 

Dr.  Carpenter  himself,  admits  alcohol,  in  one 
work,*  into  the  category  of  foods,  classifying  it 
with  the  oleaginous  group  of  foods,  although  in 
another  work,f  denouncing  it  as  poison.  As  Mr. 
Lewes  tersely  says  of  him  on  just  this  point: — 
"We  have  only  to  disentangle  his  confusion  and 
we  find  him  an  ally.” 

Alcohol  contains  the  carbon  and  hydrogen  which 
belong  to  the  normal  elements  of  the  body,  and 
common  experience  in  all  wine-growing  and  beer- 
drinking countries,  and  the  experience  of  invalids 
and  convalescents  everywhere,  who  are  often  sup- 
ported almost  entirely  on  alcoholic  fluids,  show 
that  they  are  assimilated.  Therefore  (though  not 
proper,  undiluted,  any  more  than  saltpetre,  or 
oxygen  are  good  food  by  themselves,)  it  is  capable 
of  acting,  and  does  act,  in  certain  beverages,  as  a 
food. 


* Human  Physiology,  p.  475. 

f Physiology  of  Temperance  and  Total  Abstinence. 


16 


That  light  wines,  ale,  beer  and  cider  act  (when 
moderately  used,)  as  a poison,  is  contradicted  also 
by  common  experience , by  examples  like  the  life- 
long practice  of  Cornaro,  and  the  testimony  of 
entire  nations  and  successive  ages. 

Cornaro  from  his  fortieth  year  to  his  death, 
restricted  himself  to  a daily  allowance  of  twelve 
ounces  of  solid  food  and  fourteen  ounces  of  wine. 
Of  him  Dr.  Carpenter  writes:* — 

" The  smallest  quantity  of  food  upon  which  life 
is  known  to  have  been  supported  with  vigor  during 
a prolonged  period,  is  that  on  which  Cornaro  states 
himself  to  have  subsisted.  This  was  no  more  than 
twelve  ounces  a day  chiefly  of  vegetable  matter, 
with  fourteen  ounces  of  light  wine,  for  a period  of 
fifty-eight  years.”  Born  at  Venice  in  1467,  he 
died  at  Padua  in  1566. 

Commenting  upon  this  statement  by  Dr.  Car- 
penter, Mr.  George  Henry  Lewes,  (author  of  the 
Physiology  of  Common  Life,)  says :f — “Observe 
the  proportion  of  wine  in  this  diet,  and  then  ask 
how  it  is  in  the  face  of  such  facts,  that  Dr.  Car- 
penter can  deny  the  nutritive  value  of  alcohol.” 

Concerning  wine  Liebig  says : — X 

* Human  Physiology,  p.  387. 

t Westminster  Review,  No.  cxxv.,  July,  1855. 

{ Letters  on  Chemistry,  3d  London  edition,  p.  454. 


17 


“ As  a restorative,  a means  of  refreshment  when  the 
powers  of  life  are  exhausted,  of  giving  animation  and  energy 
where  man  has  to  struggle  with  days  of  sorrow,  as  a means 
of  correction  and  compensation  where  misproportion  occurs 
in  nutrition , wine  is  surpassed  by  no  product  of  nature  or  of 
art.  * * * In  no  part  of  Germany  do  the  apothecaries’ 
establishments  bring  so  low  a price  as  in  the  rich  cities  on 
the  Rhine  ; for  there  wine  is  the  universal  medicine  of  the 
healthy  as  well  as  the  sick.  It  is  considered  as  milk  for  the 
aged.” 


Pereira  writes  as  follows  concerning  beer: — 

“ Considered  dietetically,  beer  possesses  a threefold  prop- 
erty ; it  quenches  thirst ; it  stimulates,  cheers,  and  if  taken 
in  sufficient  quantity,  intoxicates ; lastly,  it  nourishes  or 
strengthens.  * * * Beer  proves  a refreshing  and  salubrious 
drink  (if  taken  in  moderation,)  and  an  agreeable  and  valu- 
able stimulus  and  support  to  those  who  have  to  undergo 
much  bodity  fatigue.” 

In  the  article  " Diet,”  in  Chambers’s  Encyclopae- 
dia,* the  writer  says  : — 

“ The  laboring  man,  who  can  hardly  find  bread  and  meat 
enough  to  preserve  the  balance  between  the  formation  and 
decay  of  his  tissues,  finds  in  alcohol  an  agent  which,  if 
taken  in  moderation,  enables  him,  without  disturbing  his 
health,  to  dispense  with  a certain  quantity  of  food,  and  yet 
keeps  up  the  weight  and  strength  of  his  body.” 

* Chambers’s  Encyclopaedia,  Vol.  iii.,  p.  552.  Art.  Diet.  See  also  the 
Anatomy  of  Drunkenness,  by  Dr.  Macnish,  p.  225. 

3 


18 


!N"ay,  at  the  close  of  Dr.  Carpenter’s  work  on 
the  Physiology  of  Temperance  and  Total  Absti- 
nence,— a work  which  is  the  scientific  manual  of 
the  Prohibitionists, — occurs  the  following  passage. 
He  is  arguing  upon  a thesis  which  he  expresses  as 
follows,  viz. : that  “ whilst  the  habitual  use  of  alco- 
holic liquors,  even  in  the  most  moderate  amount,  is 
likely,  (except  in  a few  rare  cases,)  to  be  injurious, 
great  benefit  may  be  derived  in  the  treatment  of 
disease , from  the  medicinal  use  of  alcohol  in  appro- 
priate cases.”  And  he  comes  finally  to  speak  of 
" a class  of  individuals,  who,”  he  says,  " can 
scarcely  be  regarded  as  subjects  of  disease,  but  in 
whom  the  conditions  are  essentially  different  from 
those  of  health.”  " These  are  such,”  he  contin- 
ues, " as,  from  constitutional  debility,  or  early  hab- 
its, or  some  other  cause  that  does  not  admit  of 
rectification,  labor  under  an  habitual  deficiency  of 
appetite  and  digestive  power,  even  when  they  are 
living  under  circumstances  generally  most  favora- 
ble to  vigor,  and  when  there  is  no  indication  of  dis- 
ordered action  in  any  organ,  all  that  is  needed  being 
a slight  increase  in  the  capacity  for  preparing  the 
aliment  which  the  body  really  needs.  Experience 
affords  ample  evidence  that  there  are  such  cases, 
especially  among  those  engaged  in  avocations  which 


t 


19 

involve  a good  deal  of  mental  activity;  and  that, 
with  the  assistance  of  a small  but  habitual  allow- 
ance of  alcoholic  stimulants,  a long  life  of  active 
exertion  may  be  sustained,  whilst  the  vital  powers 
would  speedily  fail  without  their  aid,  not  for  the 
want  of  direct  support  from  them,  but  for  the  want 
of  the  measure  of  food  which  the  system  really 
needs,  and  which  no  other  means  seems  so  effectual 
in  enabling  it  to  appropriate.  * * * To  withhold 
the  assistance  of  alcoholic  stimulants,  (it  is  in  their 
very  mildest  form,  such  as  that  of  bitter  ale,  that 
they  are  most  beneficial,)  would  often  be  to  con- 
demn the  individuals  in  question  to  a life-long 
debility,  incapacitating  them  from  all  activity  of 
exertion  in  behalf  of  themselves  or  others,  and  ren- 
dering them  susceptible  to  a variety  of  other  causes 
of  disease.  For  it  seems  to  be  the  peculiar  charac- 
ter of  this  condition,  that  no  other  medicine  can 
supply  what  is  wanting,  with  the  same  effect  as  a 
small  quantity  of  an  alcoholic  beverage,  taken  with 
the  principal  meal  of  the  day.” 

This  extract,  from  Carpenter,  leads  us  to  consider 
now,  what  is  a stimulant  f It  is  often  alleged  against 
alcohol  that  it  is  stimulating;  that  it  is  even  more 
stimulating  than  almost  any  other  substance  in  ordi- 
nary use  for  diet.  But  what  is  a stimulant?  Is  a 


» 

20 

substance  intrinsically  deleterious  for  diet  because 
it  is  stimulating?  Is  it  justly  a reproach  to  a man 
that  he  uses  stimulants?  Let  us  not  be  deceived 
by  words.  Let  us  probe  this  question.  And  first, 
for  a brief,  clear,  sharp,  incisive  definition  of  the 
term  “ stimulant.”  This  has  been  well  expressed 
thus: — 

" StimuZcmZs  are  only  energetic  stimuZZ.  X o w all 
living  acts  require  stimuli, — the  eye  light,  the  egg 
and  seed  heat  or  heat  and  moisture,  the  stomach 
food,  sometimes  condiments.  It  is  hard  to  draw 
the  line.  Xinon  de  l’Enclos  said  her  soup  made 
her  tipsy,  and  convalescents  have  been  said  to  get 
drunk  on  a beefsteak.  That  which  is  a stimuZws  to 
one  person  is  a stimuZcmZ  to  another.  The  last  term 
means  only  a more  concentrated  form  of  stimulus, 
or  one  which  acts  more  vigorously  than  ordinary 
stimuli,  for  any  reason  in  itself  or  in  the  person.” 

Mr.  Lewes,  in  the  " Westminster  Review,”  * sums 
up  the  question  concerning  alcohol  as  a stimulant, 
as  follows: — 

* Westminster  Review,  Xo.  cxxv.,  July,  1S55,  American  edition  pp.  59, 
60.  See  also  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  p.  577,  hv  Prof. 
John  W.  Draper,  concerning  the  use  of  food  by  animals,  for  the  force  it 
contains.  Also  the  able  paper  by  Dr.  Edward  Smith,  On  the  Actions  of 
Alcohols,  printed  with  the  Transactions  of  the  Xational  Association  for  the 
Promotion  of  Social  Science.  London,  1860. 


21 


“ Life  is  only  possible  under  incessant  stimulus.  Organic 
processes  depend  on  incessant  change,  and  this  change  is 
dependent  on  stimuli.  The  stimulus  of  food,  the  stimulus 
of  fresh  air,  the  stimulus  of  exercise,  are  called  natural,  ben- 
eficial ; the  stimulus  of  alcohol  seems  selected  for  special 
reprobation  without  cause  being  shown,  except  that  people 
choose  to  say  it  is  not  natural.  How  not  natural  ? The 
phrase  can  have  two  significations,  and  it  can  have  but  two  : 
first,  that  alcohol  is  not  a stimulus  which  man  employs  in  a 
state  of  nature  ; second,  it  is  not  consonant  with  the  nature 
of  his  organism.  The  second  is  a pure  begging  of  the  ques- 
tion ; and  the  first  is  in  flat  contradiction  with  experience. 
* * * No  nation  known  to  us  has  ever  passed  into  the  inven- 
tive condition  of  even  rudimentary  civilization  without  dis- 
covering, and,  having  discovered,  without  largely  indulging 
in,  the  stimulus  of  alcohol.  Man  discovers  fermentation  as 
he  discovers  the  tea-plant  and  the  coffee-plant. 

“ Of  two  things,  one  ; either  we  must  condemn  all  stimu- 
lus, and  alcohol,  because  it  is  a stimulus  ; or  we  must  prove 
that  there  is  something  peculiar  in  the  alcoholic  stimulus 
which  demarcates  it  from  all  others.  Here,  again,  the  reader 
sees  the  question  narrowed  and  brought  within  an  arena  of 
precise  debate.  Only  two  positions  are  possible  ; indeed,  we 
may  say,  only  one  ; for  who  is  mad  enough  to  condemn  all 
stimulus  ? The  ground  thus  cleared,  the  fight  narrowed  to 
this  one  point,  let  us  do  justice  to  the  strength  of  our  antag- 
onist ; let  us  confess  at  once  that  there  is  a peculiarity  in 
alcohol  which  justifies  in  some  degree  its  bad  reputation,  a 
peculiarity  upon  which  all  the  mischief  of  intoxication  de- 
pends ; one  which  causes  all  the  miseries  so  feelingly  laid  to 
its  door.  And  what  is  this  peculiarity  ? Nothing  less  than 
the  fascination  of  its  virtue,  the  potency  of  its  effect ; were 


22 


it  less  alluring,  it  would  not  lure  to  excess ; were  it  less 
potent,  it  would  not  leap  into  such  flames  of  fiery  exaltation.” 

Prof.  J.  F.  TV.  Johnson,  in  his  Chemistry  of  Com- 
mon Life,*  one  of  the  most  useful  works  of  that 
distinguished  chemist,  says: — 

“ It  is  ascertained  of  ardent  spirits,  First.  That  they 
directly  warm  the  body,  and,  by  the  changes  they  undergo 
in  the  blood,  supply  a portion  of  that  carbonic  acid  and 
watery  vapor  which,  as  a necessity  of  life,  are  constantly 
being  given  off  by  the  lungs.  They  so  far,  therefore,  supply 
the  place  of  food — of  the  fat  and  starch  for  example — which 
we  usually  eat.  Hence  a schnapps,  in  Germany,  with  a 
slice  of  lean  dried  meat,  make  a mixture  like  that  of  the 
starch  and  gluten  in  our  bread,  which  is  capable  of  feeding 
the  body.  So  we  either  add  sugar  to  milk,  or  take  spirits 
along  with  it,  (old  man’s  milk,)  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting 
the  proportions  of  the  ingredients  more  suitably  to  the  con- 
stitution, or  to  the  circumstances  in  which  it  is  to  be 
consumed. 

“ Second.  That  they  diminish  the  absolute  amount  of 
matter  usually  given  off  by  the  lungs  and  the  kidneys. 
They  thus  lessen,  as  tea  and  coffee  do,  the  natural  waste  of 
the  fat  and  tissues,  and  they  necessarily  diminish  in  an  equal 
degree  the  quantity  of  ordinary  food  which  is  necessary  to 
keep  up  the  weight  of  the  body.  In  other  words,  they  have 
the  property  of  making  a given  weight  of  food  go  further 
in  sustaining  the  strength  and  bulk  of  the  body.  And,  in 
addition  to  the  saving  of  material  thus  effected,  they  ease  and 


* Vol.  i.,  p.  349. 


23 


lighten  the  labor  of  the  digestive  organs,  which,  when  the 
stomach  is  weak,  is  often  a most  valuable  result. 

“ Hence  fermented  liquors,  if  otherwise  suitable  to  the 
constitution,  exercise  a beneficial  influence  iipon  old  people, 
and  other  weakly  persons  whose  fat  and  tissues  have  begun 
to  waste.  * * * This  lessening  in  weight  or  substance  is 
one  of  the  most  usual  consequences  of  the  approach  of  old 
age.  It  is  a common  symptom  of  the.  decline  of  life.  * * * 
Weak  alcoholic  drinks  arrest  or  retard,  and  thus  diminish 
the  daily  amount  of  this  loss  of  substance.  * * * Hence 
poets  have  called  wine  1 the  milk  of  the  old,’  and  scientific 
philosophy  owns  the  propriety  of  the  term.  If  it  does  not 
nourish  the  old  so  directly  as  milk  nourishes  the  young, 
yet  it  certainly  does  aid  in  supporting  and  filling  up  their 
failing  frames.  And  it  is  one  of  the  happy  consequences  of 
a temperate  youth  and  manhood,  that  this  spirituous  milk 
does  not  fail  in  its  good  effects  when  the  weight  of  years 
begins  to  press  upon  us.” 

And  now,  with  especial  reference  to  alcohol  both 
as  food  and  as  stimulus,  the  latest,  and  certainly  one 
of  the  ablest,  scientific  authorities,  is  the  recent 
work  on  " Stimulants  and  ^Narcotics  ” by  Dr. 
Francis  E.  Anstie,  lecturer  on  Materia  Medica  and 
Therapeutics,  and  formerly  on  Toxicology,  at 
Westminster. 

Dr.  Anstie  says : — 

“ If  anything  deserves  the  name  of  a food , assuredly 
oxygen  does,  for  it  is  the  most  necessary  element  in  every 
process  of  life.  It  is  highly  suggestive,  then,  to  find  that 


24 


that  very  same  quiet  and  perfect  action  of  the  vital  functions, 
without  undue  waste,  without  hurry,  without  pain,  without 
excessive  material  growth,  is  precisely  what  we  produce, 
when  we  produce  any  useful  effect,  by  the  administration 
of  stimulants , though,  as  might  he  expected,  our  artificial 
means  are  weak  and  uncertain  in  their  operation,  compared 
with  the  great  natural  stimulus  of  life.”  (p.  145.) 

“ A stimulus  promotes  or  restores  some  natural  action,  and 
is  no  more  liable  to  be  followed  by  morbid  depression  than 
is  the  revivifying  influence  of  food.  And  if  it  he  sought  to 
distinguish  foods  by  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  being 
transformed  in  the  body , then  I answer  that  this  is  the  worst 
definition  of  food  that  can  be  given;  since  water,  which  is  not 
transformed  in  the  body  at  all,  is  nevertheless,  the  most 
necessary  element  of  nutrition,  seeing  that  human  life  can- 
not only  not  be  maintained  without  it,  but  may  subsist  for 
weeks  on  water  as  its  only  pabulum  besides  the  atmosphere 
and  tissues.”  (p.  149.) 

“ Alcohol  taken  alone  or  with  the  addition  alone  of  small 
quantities  of  water,  will  prolong  life  greatly  beyond  the 
period  at  which  it  must  cease  if  no  nourishment  or  water 
only  had  been  given ; that  in  acute  diseases  it  has  repeat- 
edly supported  not  only  life,  hut  even  the  hulk  of  the  body 
during  many  days  of  abstinence  from  common  foods ; and 
that,  in  a few  instances  persons  have  supported  themselves 
almost  solely  on  alcohol  and  inconsiderable  quantities  of 
water  for  years.” 

“ We  may  be  at  a loss  to  explain  the  chemistry  of  its  action 
on  the  body,  but  we  may  safely  say  that  it  acts  as  a food.” 
*(p-  138.) 

“ Another  grand  argument  against  the  propriety  of  com- 
paring stimulants  with  true  foods  has  always  been  that 


25 


stimulus  is  invariably  followed  by  reaction.  * * * It  is  not 
true  that  stimulus  is  of  itself  provocative  of  subsequent 
depression  ; but  there  are  circumstances  in  which  this  might 
easily  appear  to  be  the  case.  For  instance,  when  the  super- 
abundant mental  energy  of  a man  whose  physical  frame  is 
weak,  induces  him  to  make  violent  and  continued  physical 
efforts,  he  is  apt  to  find,  at  the  end  of  a short  ‘ spurt  ’ of 
exertion,  that  his  energy  is  exhausted.  But  here  the 
exhaustion  is  no  recoil  from  a state  of  stimulation.  * * * 
And  the  case  of  drunkenness,  that  is,  of  alcoholic  narcotism — 
affords  another  excellent  example  of  the  fallacy  we  are  con- 
sidering. The  narcotic  dose  of  alcohol,  * * * is  alone 
responsible  for  the  symptoms  of  depressive  reaction.  Had 
a merely  stimulant  dose  been  administered,  no  depression 
would  have  occurred,  any  more  than  depression  results  from 
such  a gentle  stimulus  of  the  muscular  system  as  is  implied 
in  a healthy  man  taking  a walk  of  three  or  four  miles. 
What  depression  is  there,  as  an  after  consequence,  of  a glass 
or  two  of  wine  taken  at  dinner,  or  of  a glass  of  beer  taken 
at  lunch,  by  a healthy  man  ? What  reaction  from  a tea- 
spoonful of  sal-volatile  swallowed  by  a person  who  feels 
somewhat  faint?  What  recoil  from  the  stimulus  of  heat, 
applied  in  a hot  bath,  or  of  oxygen  administered  by  Mar- 
shall Hall’s  process,  to  a half-drowned  man  ? Absolutely 
none  whatever (pp.  146-7.) 

Doctor  Brinton*  says  in  his  Treatise  on  Food 
and  Digestion : — 

“ From  good  wine,  in  moderate  quantities,  there  is  no 
reaction  whatever.  * * * That  teetotalism  is  com- 

* Treatise  on  Food  and  Digestion , by  William  Brinton,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  S., 
Physician  to  St.  Thomas’  Hospital.  (English.) 

4 


26 


patible  with  health,  it  needs  no  elaborate  facts  to  establish  ; 
but  if  we  take  the  customary  life  of  those  constituting  the 
masses  of  our  inhabitants  of  towns,  we  shall  find  reason  to 
wait  before  we  assume  that  this  result  will  extend  to  our 
population  at  large.  And,  in  respect  to  experience,  it  is 
singular  how  few  healthy  teetotallers  are  to  be  met  with  in 
our  ordinary  inhabitants  of  cities.  Glancing  back  over  the 
many  years  during  which  this  question  has  been  forced  upon 
the  author  by  his  professional  duties,  he  may  estimate  that 
he  has  sedulously  examined  not  less  than  50,000  to  70,000 
persons,  including  many  thousands  in  perfect  health.  "Wish- 
ing, and  even  expecting  to  find  it  otherwise,  he  is  obliged  to 
confess  that  he  has  hitherto  met  with  but  very  few  perfectly 
healthy  middle-aged  persons,  successfully  pursuing  any 
arduous  metropolitan  calling  under  teetotal  habits.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  has  known  many  total  abstainers,  whose 
apparently  sound  constitutions  have  given  way  with  unusual 
and  frightful  rapidity  when  attacked  by  a casual  sickness.” 

The  emphasis  of  this  opinion  will  be  more  fully 
appreciated,  if  one  will  but  examine  Dr.  Brin- 
ton’s  book  ” On  Diseases  of  the  Stomach,”  which 
exhibits  him  in  a most  cautious  and  conservative 
light,  iu  the  remedial  prescription  of  alcoholic 
drinks. 

I come  now  very  briefly  to  consider  certain 
recent  experiments  upon  which  the  prohibitionists 
mainly  rely,  to  control  the  scientific  opinions  to 
which  I have  already  alluded.  I mean  those  of 
MM.  Lallemand,  Perrin,  and  Durov.  These  inge- 


27 


nious  French  chemists,  after  a series  of  original 
experiments,  supposed  themselves  to  have  proved 
that  " alcohol  is  eliminated  from  the  organism  in 
totality  and  in  nature ,”  and  that  it  " is  never  trans- 
formed, never  destroyed  in  the  organism .”  Their 
conclusion  therefore,  is,  that  " alcohol  is  not  food,” 
as  a scientific  proposition,  although  as  matter  of 
practice  they  do  go  for  light  wines.  In  a pamphlet 
entitled  "Is  Alcohol  Food  or  Physic,”  which  I 
bought  at  the  rooms  of  the  “ Temperance  Alliance  ” 
in  Boston,  in  which  these  gentlemen  are  upheld  as 
supposed  destroyers  of  the  theory  of  which  Liebig 
may  he  termed  the  father,  I find  that  their  experi- 
ments are  contrasted  favorably  with  others,  because 
they  were  made  on  an  empty  stomach;  and  that 
these  French  experiments  are  confessedly  patho- 
logical, rather  than  dietetic.  The  argument  drawn 
from  them,  assumes,  in  great  part,  that  inferences 
can  be  fairly  drawn  from  effects  produced  by 
narcotic,  or  poisonous  doses,  (as  for  instance,  the 
case  of  a man  who  died  thirty-two  hours  after 
drinking  a pint  of  brandy,)  to  the  case  of  a person, 
using  with  temperance  as  a part  of  his  meal,  and 
in  due  proportion  with  other  food,  an  article  of 
mild  drink  in  which  it  is  combined.  The  same 
reasoning  would  in  like  manner,  justify  the  argu- 


28 


merit  that,  because  a decoction  of  green  tea,  of  a 
given  strength,  will  surely  cause  death,  therefore  a 
cup  of  weak  tea  taken  with  supper, — containing  as 
it  does,  a portion  of  theine , the  characteristic  prin- 
ciple of  tea, — is  a deleterious  drink,  and  propor- 
tionally poisonous.  It  also  overlooks  the  mysteri- 
ous subtleties  of  animal  life,  and  those,  still  more 
mysterious  and  elusive,  which  connect  the  moral 
with  the  animal  economy.  It  fails  to  observe  the 
existence  of  a vital  chepiistry,  some  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  which  are  observable,  but  whose  laws 
thus  far  defy  our  capacity  for  logical  definition.  It 
even  overlooks  the  varying  action  of  the  different 
alcoholic  drinks,  disclosed  in  the  experiments  of 
Dr.  Edward  Smith;  for  example,  brandy  and  gin 
lessening  the  quantity  of  carbonic  acid  evolved  in 
respiration,  while  it  was  increased,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  the  use  of  ale,  and  by  the  use  of  rum. 

Animal  chemistry  is  in  its  infancy.  The  positive 
knowledge  on  the  points  undertaken  to  be  so  dog- 
matically affirmed,  on  the  strength  of  those  recent 
French  experiments,  is  relatively  little;  and  men  of 
science  do  not  concur  with  their  deductions. 

Dr.  Anstie,  after  having  discussed  and  examined 
the  many  experiments  both  of  Smith  and  of  Lalle- 
mand  and  his  friends,  nevertheless  declares,  in  view 


29 


of  tlieir  facts  and  those  disclosed  by  the  experiments 
of  himself  and  of  Baudot  and  others,  his  non-concur- 
rence with  the  Lallemand  theory;  and,  (comparing 
it  with  aether  and  chloroform,)  he  says  of  alcohol 
that  it  seems  as  if  it  " was  intended  to  he  the  medi- 
cine of  those  ailments  which  are  engendered  of  the 
necessary  every  day  evils  of  civilized  life,  and  has 
therefore  been  made  attractive  to  the  senses,  and 
easily  retained  in  the  tissues,  and  in  various  ways 
approving  itself  to  our  judgment  as  a food / while 
the  others,  which  are  more  rarely  needed  for  their 
stimulant  properties,  and  are  chiefly  valuable  for 
their  beneficent  temporary  poisonous  action,  by  the 
help  of  which  painful  operations  are  sustained  with 
impunity,  are  in  a great  measure  deprived  of  these 
attractions,  and  of  their  facilities  for  entering  and 
remaining  in  the  system.”  * 

One  of  the  most  able  English  scientific  critics  of 
these  French  experiments  further  says  :f 

“ Dr.  Brinton,  [in  his  work  on  Food  and  Digestion,]  who 
is  I)}'  no  means  unreasonably  prejudiced  in  favor  of  alcohol, 
has  given  it  as  the  result' of  his  very  large  experience,  that 
persons  who  abstain  altogether  from  alcohol,  break  down, 
almost  invariably,  after  a certain  number  of  years,  if  they 

* Stimulants  and  Narcotics,  p.  401. 

f Cornhill  Magazine,  No.  33,  September,  1862.  Art.,  Does  Alcohol  act 
as  a Food  ? p.  329. 


30 


are  constantly  employed  in  any  severe  intellectual  or  phys- 
ical labor.  Either  their  minds  or  their  bodies  give  way 
suddenly,  and  the  mischief  once  done  is  very  hard  to  repair. 
This  is  quite  in  accordance  with  what  I have  myself  observed, 
and  with  what  I can  gather  from  other  medical  men : and 
it  speaks  volumes  concerning  the  way  in  which  we  ought  to 
regard  alcohol.  If,  indeed,  it  be  a fact,  that  in  a certain 
high  state  of  civilization  men  require  to  take  alcohol  every 
day,  in  some  shape  or  other,  under  penalty  of  breaking 
down  prematurely  in  their  work,  it  is  idle  to  appeal  to  a set 
of  imperfect  chemical  or  physiological  experiments,  and  to 
decide,  on  their  evidence,  that  we  ought  to  call  alcohol  a 
medicine  or  a poison,  but  not  a food.  In  the  name  of  com- 
mon sense,  why  should  we  retain  these  ridiculous  distinc- 
tions for  any  other  purpose  than  to  avoid  catastrophes  ? If 
it  be  well  understood  that  a glass  of  good  wine  will  relieve 
a man’s  depression  and  fatigue  sufficiently  to  enable  him  to 
digest  his  dinner,  and  that  a pint  of  gin  taken  at  once  will 
probably  kill  him  stone  dead,  why  haggle  about  words  ? On 
the  part  of  the  medical  profession,  I think  I may  say  that 
we  have  long  since  begun  to  believe  that  those  medicines 
which  really  do  benefit  our  patients  act  in  one  way  or 
another  as  foods,  and  that  some  of  the  most  decidedly  poi- 
sonous substances  are  those  which  offer,  in  the  form  of  small 
doses,  the  strongest  example  of  a true  food  action  ? 

“ On  the  part  of  alcohol,  then,  I venture  to  claim  that 
though  we  all  acknowledge  it  to  be  a poison,  if  taken  during 
health  in  any  but  quite  restricted  doses,  it  is  also  a most 
valuable  medicine-food.  I am  obliged  to  declare  that  the 
chemical  evidence  is  as  yet  insufficient  to  give  any  complete 
explanation  of  its  exact  manner  of  action  upon  the  system  ; 
but  that  the  practical  facts  are  as  striking  as  they  could  well 


31 


be,  and  that  there  can  be  no  mistake  about  them.  And  I 
have  thought  it  proper  that,  while  highly-colored  statements 
of  the  results  of  the  new  French  researches  are  being  some- 
what disingenuously  placed  before  the  lay  public,  there 
should  not  be  a total  silence  on  the  part  of  those  members 
of  the  profession  who  do  not  see  themselves  called  upon  to 
yield  to  the  mere  force  of  agitation.” 

And  just  a dozen  years  ago,  Dr.  James  Jackson, 
the  venerable,  beloved  and  most  eminent  ^Nestor 
of  the  medical  profession  in  America,  bore  this 
public  testimony  concerning  the  medicinal  employ- 
ment of  spirits  and  wines: — 

“ 1 would  never  order  them  to  one  whom  I suspected  to 
be  deficient  in  prudence  and  self-control.  But,  keeping 
these  things  in  mind,  I have  often  directed  the  use  even  of 
brandy.  In  doing  this,  I have  been  in  the  habit  of  saying 
to  the  patient,  ‘ If  I ever  hear  of  your  indulging  to  excess 
in  the  use  of  this,  or  any  similar  article,  I will  call  on  you 
and  exhort  you  to  stop.’  In  one  instance,  and  only  one  in 
the  course  of  a long  life,  have  I been  called  upon  to  redeem 
my  pledge.  This  was  in  the  case  of  a worthy  lady,  some 
twenty  years  after  I had  directed  the  measured  use  of 
brandy.  At  my  request,  she  immediately  gave  up  the  use 
of  all  spirituous  and  fermented  liquors,  and  I have  reason 
to  believe  that  she  never  resumed  them.  I do  not,  then, 
call  the  risk  very  great  of  such  prescriptions,  when  made 
with  proper  caution.  In  regard  to  the  benefit,  in  some 
cases  of  dyspepsia,  and  in  various  other  cases,  I have  .not 
any  doubt.  And,  that  I may  tell  the  whole,  let  me  say,  that 


32 


I have  repeatedly  seen  very  great  benefit  from  giving  wine 
to  young  children.  The  benefit  has  been  particularly 
marked  in  some  children  struggling  feebly  through  the 
period  of  dentition,  and  I can  name  some  to  whom  I had 
made  this  prescription  more  than  forty  years  ago,  among 
whom  not  one  has  shown  any  peculiar  fondness  for  wine  in 
subsequent  years.  I exhort  all  young  people  in  health  not 
to  adopt  the  practice  of  drinking  wine.  I deprecate  every- 
thing which  shall  tend  to  intemperance,  and  I believe  that 
many  men  suffer  from  the  use  of  wine  and  spirits,  even  in 
a moderate  way.  But  I love  to  tell  the  truth,  even  when  it 
is  unfashionable.  I believe  that  very  many  persons  are 
benefited  by  the  juice  of  the  grape,  and  I choose  to  say  so. 
Moreover,  I believe  that  persons  disposed  to  intemperance 
are  not  to  be  restrained  from  indulging  their  vicious 
propensity,  by  the  abstinence  of  their  more  prudent 
neighbors.”  * 

Professor  Gairdner,  of  Edinburgh — while  wholly 
opposing  the  theory  of  retarding  the  metamorpho- 
sis of  tissue  as  a desirable  end,  and  while  admitting 
that  to  the  perfect  ideal  man,  living  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  all  natural  and  wholesome  vital  stimuli, 
amid  perfect  hygienic  conditions,  such  liquors  are 
probably  worse  than  superfluous — declares  his 
desire  to  leave  all  the  physiological  abstractions, 

* Letters  to  a Young  Physician  just  entering  upon  Practice,  by  Dr. 
James  Jackson,  M.  D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  Emeritus  of  the  Theory  and 
Practice  of  Physic  in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  late  Physician  Massa- 
chusetts General  Hospital,  Honorary  Member  of  the  Medico-Chirurgical 
Society  of  London,  Corresponding  Member  of  the  Academy  of  Medicine 
at  Paris,  &c.,  &c.,  &c. 


33 


and  to  take  his  stand  on  the  great  broad  series  of 
recognized  facts,  which  prove  their  relieving,  reviv- 
ing and  supporting  power  under  difficulties  and 
in  emergencies;  claiming  the  right  of  reason  to 
discriminate  between  their  use  and  abuse.  In  that 
spirit  he  quotes  in  his  work  on  " Clinical  Medicine  ” 
this  paragraph,  from  the  " Letters  to  a Young  Phy- 
sician,” calling  it  " the  whole  matter  in  a nutshell .” 

Yot  content  with  my  own  unlearned  reflections, 
nor  even  to  leave  the  matter  with  Dr.  Anstie,  I 
called  the  subject  as  it  is  presented  by  Lallemand, 
to  the  attention  of  Dr.  James  C.  "White,  the  learned 
assistant-professor  of  chemistry  in  Harvard  College. 
The  report  made  by  that  gentleman,  confirms  the 
belief,  in  'which  Anstie  had  also  concurred,  that 
some  alcohol  is  eliminated  unchanged  through  the 
channels  indicated  by  Lallemand  and  his  friends; 
thus  establishing  an  error  in  the  previously  held 
theory  that,  with  the  exception  of  a small  amount 
which  escaped  by  the  lungs,  during  expiration,  this 
substance  was  entirely  consumed  within  the  organ- 
ism. But  he  affirms  that  these  experiments  in  no 
way  prove  that  alcohol  is  eliminated  in  totality  from 
the  system ; for  the  experiments  on  which  that  con- 
clusion is  based,  furnish  the  strongest  possible  evi- 
dence of  its  unwarrantableness.  The  very  experi- 

5 


34 


ments  on  which  alone  they  rest  the  conclusion  that 
all  which  is  taken  into  the  animal  economy  escapes 
again  unchanged,  fail  to  discover  any  but  a very 
small  percentage  discharged  through  the  various 
channels  of  elimination.  Yet  the  assertion  is,  that 
all  has  been  thus  eliminated;  while  if  anything  is 
proved  at  all,  it  is  proved  that  alcohol  is  nearly  all 
consumed  within  the  organism,  and  that  a very 
small  percentage  escapes  unchanged.  But  it  should 
be  remembered  that  an  excessive  quantity  of  either 
salt  or  sugar  being  taken  into  the  system,  the 
excess  is  disposed  of  in  the  same  way. 

Of  the  proposition  that  " alcohol  is  never  trans- 
formed, never  destroyed  ” in  the  organism,  Dr. 
White  reports  thus: — 

“ Former  investigators  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
alcohol  was  converted  into  aldehyde  and  acetic  acid,  pro- 
gressive products  of  oxygenation  of  alcohol,  which  in  turn 
underwent  further  transformation,  and  that  it  finally  escaped 
as  carbonic  acid  and  water.  Lallemand,  <tc.,  examined  the 
blood,  after  the  use  of  alcohol,  and  failed  to  find  either  alde- 
hyde or  acetic  acid,  and  on  this  negative  evidence  alone  is 
based  the  sweeping  conclusion.  Even  if  we  admit  the  cor- 
rectness and  fairness  of  their  results  which  were  obtained  by 
experiments  performed  at  too  early  a period  to  be  completely 
satisfactory,  and  which  are  met  by  those  of  Bouchardet,  they 
in  no  w ay  invalidate  the  theory  of  the  transformation  of 
alcohol  in  the  organism.  We  know  too  little  of  the  many 


35 


and  complex  changes  which  organic  substances  undergo 
within  the  economy,  to  speak  in  such  positive  terms.  Those 
conclusions  may  or  may  not  be  adopted  as  to  the  conversion 
of  alcohol  into  aldehyde  and  acetic  acid ; they  certainly  in 
no  way  settle  the  question  as  to  its  transformation  or  destruc- 
tion in  the  system.” 

But,  besides  these  proofs,  you  have  in  evidence 
before  you  the  testimony  of  Dr.  White  in  person, 
of  Dr.  Edward  H.  Clarke,  Professor  of  Materia 
Medica,  of  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Professor 
of  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  of  Dr.  Henry  J. 
Bigelow,  Professor  of  Surgery,  of  Dr.  J.  B.  S. 
Jackson,  Professor  of  Morbid  Anatomy  and  Path- 
ology, and  of  Dr.  D.  Humphreys  Storer,  Professor 
of  Obstetrics,  (all  in  the  Medical  School  of  Har- 
vard College;)  of  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson  and 
Professor  E.  1ST.  Horsford,  both  eminent  in  chem- 
istry and  other  branches  of  natural  science.  Those 
gentlemen  constitute  an  array  of  experts  in  the 
sciences  of  chemistry,  physiology  and  medicine, 
who  are  recognized  as  authority  in  the  other  hem- 
isphere, as  well  as  in  our  own.  With  their  testi- 
mony before  the  Committee,  forming  a part  of  the 
printed  record  of  its  investigations,  I need  only 
allude  to  it  without  recital.  I hold,  that  the  opin- 
ions of  these  gentlemen,  aided  also  by  that  of  Pro- 


36 


fessor  Agassiz,  who  testified  to  the  fact  of  the  use 
of  wine,  with  manifestly  happy  effects,  in  the  actual 
alimentation  of  European  peoples,  have  for  all  the 
purposes  of  legislative  inquiry  established  the  diet- 
etic uses  of  alcoholic  beverages , when  employed,  in 
moderation , and  properly  combined  in  the  construc- 
tion of  diet.  Their  opinions  again  are  re-inforced 
by  the  recent  physiological  experiments  tried  with 
ingenious  variety  in  his  own  person,  by  Dr.  Ham- 
mond, lately  surgeon-general  of  the  army  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by 
that  eminent  physiologist.* 

It  does  not  follow,  that  because  an  old  man,  or 
an  ill-fed  man,  or  an  overtasked  man,  or  an  invalid, 
may  find  alcoholic  beverages  useful,  they  are  not 
useless  or  hurtful  to  others.  It  does  not  follow, 
that  because  they  are  good  for  some  at  sometimes, 
they  are  good  for  all  or  at  all  times.  Xor,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  it  follow,  because  in  their  excess 
and  misapplication,  they  are  indescribably  bad,  that, 
" with  bell,  book  and  candle,”  they  should  be 
solemnly  cursed  by  the  General  Court. 

This  review  of  the  assumption  that,  because 
alcohol  taken  in  excess  is  injurious,  it  is  therefore 


* See  Hammond’s  “Physiological  Memoirs,”  Philadelphia,  1863. 


37 


always  a poison,  will  be  soon  ended.  The  statement 
of  the  proposition  would  seem  to  exhibit  its  fallacy, 
for  it  is  arguing  from  abuse  to  use,  and  it  is  deny- 
ing that  difference  in  quantity  can  produce  differ- 
ence in  quality. 

The  assertion  is  that,  because  alcohol  taken  into 
the  system  in  certain  quantities  acts  as  a poison,  it 
is  therefore  in  all  quantities  and  dilutions  a poison. 
Let  us  examine  it  in  the  light  of  familiar  illustra- 
tions. Omitting  for  the  moment  facts  in  evidence 
pertaining  to  alcohol  itself,  we  have  analogy  per- 
fect and  to  the  point,  in  atmospheric  air. 

Atmospheric  air  is  composed  of,  by  weight,  23.01 
of  qkygen,  and  76.99  of  nitrogen.  Each  of  the 
constituents  of  the  air  is  essential  to  the  present 
order  of  things.  Oxygen  is  pre-eminently  its 
active  element.  Duly  to  • restrain  this  activity  the 
oxygen  is  diluted  and  weakened  by  three  times  its 
bulk  of  the  negative  element — nitrogen.  Their 
properties  are  thus  perfectly  adjusted  to  the  require- 
ments of  the  living  world.  Were  the  atmosphere 
wholly  composed  of  nitrogen,  life  could  never  have 
been  possible ; were  it  to  consist  wholly  of  oxygen, 
other  conditions  remaining  as  they  are,  the  world 
would  run  through  its  career  with  fearful  rapidity ; 
combustion,  once  excited,  would  proceed  with 


38 


ungovernable  violence;  animals  would  live  with 
hundred-fold  intensity,  and  perish  in  a few  hours. 

To  infer  from  the  effects  of  a large  quantity  to 
those  of  a less,  is  thus  contrary  to  sound  observa- 
tion. Oxygen , pure,  is  a poison, — that  is,  we  should 
die  in  it.  Dilute  it  with  three-fourths  of  nitrogen, 
and  it  becomes  the  air  we  breathe  and  by  which  all 
life  is  supported. 

Saltpetre  kills  a man  in  doses  of  one  ounce  or 
upward.  Eight  ounces  dissolved  in  a pint  of  water 
killed  a horse.  Two  or  three  drachms  only,  will 
kill  a dog.  Xay,  this  very  nitre  or  saltpetre  may 
easily  be  a remediless  poison. 

“ In  acute  rheumatism  it  is  sometimes  administered  in 
doses  repeated  at  intervals  to  the  extent  of  two  ounces  in 
twenty-four  hours  ; though  one-half  ounce  in  concentrated 
solution  causes  heat  and  paiii  in  the  stomach  which  may  be 
followed  with  convulsions  and  death.  When  taken  in 
poisonous  quantities  there  is  no  antidote  known.”* 

Yet,  saltpetre  is  used  without  fear  of  evil  conse- 
quences in  the  curing  of  hams  and  other  meats. 
Shall  we  say  that  a sandwich  is  poisonous  and 
should  be  prohibited  by  law? 


New  American  Cyclopmdia,  Vol.  xii.,  p.  377.  Art.  Nitre. 


39 


With  one  more  quotation  from  the  able  pen  of 
Mr.  Lewes,  I dismiss  this  fallacy  from  further 
argument : — 

“ When  people  say  ‘ Oh,  this  is  only  a question  of  degree,’ 
they  forget  how  frequently  questions  of  degree  involve  ques- 
tions of  kind.  Ice  and  steam  differ  only  in  the  degree  of 
heat ; the  cold  of  the  Arctics  and  the  heat  of  the  Tropics  are 
but  differences  of  degree. 

“ Iron  in  a mass  exposed  to  the  air,  burns,  but  burns  so 
slowly  that  we  call  it  rust;  the  same  iron  in  a state  of 
extreme  subdivision  ignites  when  exposed  to  the  air.  Here 
we  have  only  differences  of  degree,  yet  if  an  inflammable 
substance  be  near  the  ignited  powder,  it  will  also  ignite, 
whereas  the  same  substance  might  remain  forever  close  by 
the  rusting  iron  and  never  be  affected.  If  this  be  true  in 
cases  so  simple,  how  much  more  should  we  expect  to  find  it 
in  cases  so  complex  as  those  of  organic  processes  where 
minute  variations  ramify  into  vast  and  unforeseen  results ! 

“ The  argument  from  excess  is  worthless.  It  only  meets 
cases  of  excess.  Oxygen  is  as  terrible  a poison  as  strych- 
nine, if  in  excess.  Heat,  so  indispensable  to  the  organism,  is 
obliged  to  be  reduced  to  moderate  quantities  before  the  organ- 
ism can  endure  it.  Light,  which  is  the  necessary  stimulus 
to  the  eye,  produces  blindness,  in  excess ; mutton-chops 
have,  when  taken  in  moderation,  a nutritive  value  which  no 
Briton  is  bold  enough  to  question,  * * * yet  mutton-chops 
taken  in  excess  kill  with  the  certainty  of  arsenic,  for  over- 
nutrition  is  fatal.” 

9 


40 


And  now,  in  concluding  my  remarks  upon  what  I 
have  termed  the  scientific  view  of  the  question,  I 
repeat,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Lewes: — 

" Let  no  advocate  of  temperance  misconstrue  the 
present  [argument.]  We  rescue  a scientific  ques- 
tion, we  do  not  oppose  the  moral  principles  of  the 
movement.  That  drunkenness  is  one  of  the  most 
terrible  sources  of  demoralization,  and  that  tem- 
perance, both  physically  and  morally,  is  one  of  the 
cardinal  virtues  most  needing  inculcation,  no  rea- 
sonable being  doubts.  Equally  indisputable  is  it 
that  any  movement  which  can  effect  a reform  in  the 
tendency  to  drunkenness,  deserves  the  heartiest 
support.  INTor  are  we  surprised  at  the  exaggera- 
tions and  errors  which  such  a movement  employs 
as  instruments  to  effect  its  purpose.  * * * Our 
purpose,  then,  be  it  understood,  is  not  to  cast  a 
stone  of  obstruction  in  the  path  of  the  temperance 
movement,  but  to  argue  a scientific  question.” 

This  much,  at  all  events,  is  clear,  viz. : That  the 
- Legislature  of  Massachusetts  has  no  knowledge,  and 
has  no  means  of  knowing,  that  the  classification, 
(so  commonly  and  so  authoritatively  made,')  by 
which  alcohol,  as  found  in  certain  drinks,  is  included 
in  the  category  of  foods,  is  not  correct.  If  that 
classification  is  correct,  then  there  is  an  end  of  the 


41 


controversy.  For  then  it  cannot  be  held  that  the 
government  ought  to  prohibit  the  citizen  from 
making  up  his  own  bill  of  fare  for  himself;  though 
he  can  be  held  accountable  for  his  evil  conduct 
affecting  others,  proceeding  from  his  abusing  this 
liberty.  But  those  who  insist  on  the  existing 
statute  of  prohibition,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  those 
drinks  are  foods,  or  that  they  may  be  such,  and 
that  most  masters  of  chemistry  and  physiology 
have  so  taught,  and  that  the  successive  gener- 
ations of  men  have  so  believed,  and  that  the 
most  venerable  exemplars  of  all  human  history 
have  confirmed  that  belief  by  their  own  examples, 

8 9 

and  that  a great  portion  of  the  people  of  Massa- 
chusetts think  so  now,  and  at  least  demand  the 
right  of  deciding  the  question  for  themselves, — 
those  who  thus  insist,  dare  to  propose  to  drive 
rough-shod  over  all  respect  for  the  convictions  of 
their  neighbors,  and,  assuming  a theory  entirely 
modern,  (and  at  the  best,  uncertain  and  contro- 
verted,) to  continue  and  to  enforce  the  pains  and 
the  disgraces  of  the  criminal  law  in  its  support. 
If  the  proposition , on  which  alone  prohibition  by 
the  government  can  possibly  stand,  is  true,  let  it  be 
proved.  I,  certainly,  for  one,  having  meditated 

upon  it,  and  observed  upon  it  for  years,  have  not 
6 


42 


seen  it  established.  I am  entirely  willing  to  find  it 
true.  And  if  it  is  true,  I desire  that  its  truth  shall 
be  made  clear.  But  I want  it  established  by 
methods  fit  to  be  pursued  by  free  and  rational  men. 
I desire  that  every  obstacle  may  be  removed  from 
the  path  of  inquiry,  and  that  the  minds  of  all  the 
people  may  be  disabused  of  every  just  ground  of 
prejudice,  and  be  made  hospitable  and  receptive.  I 
know  that  wilfulness  and  violence,  even  under  the 
forms  of  law,  can  only  arouse  contradiction  and 
resentment.  I know  that,  besides  these,  there  will 
continue  to  be  aroused  an  honest  sense  of  personal 
injustice  inflicted  by  the  operation  of  statutes 
believed  to  be  founded  on  incorrect  notions,  arbi- 
trarily insisted  upon,  and  obstinately  adhered  to. 
While  such  relations  last,  there  is  no  opportunity 
for  men  on  either  side  to  reach  the  best  conclusions. 
The  mere  war  of  words  is  of  itself  always  suffi- 
ciently disturbing.  But,  it  seems  an  almost  wanton 
disregard  of  the  laws  and  the  rights  of  the  human 
mind,  to  complicate  and  distract,  as  the  upholders 
of  this  law  have  done,  the  moral  and  intellectual 

issues  which  the  whole  subject  involves.  Grant 

* 

that  you  have  much  reason  to  believe  the  proposi- 
tion of  the  Prohibitionists  true,  I submit  that  no 
honest  man  can  yet  declare  that  it  is  proved. 


43 


!STay — outside  of  the  lists  of  controversy — where 
are  th$  intelligent  judges  who  are  prepared  to 
affirm  that  it  enjoys  even  the  preponderance  of  the 
proofs? 

I honor  these  scholars,  whose  testimony  has  been 
cited,  for  their  ingenious  pursuit  of  science.  I 
should  never  fear  that  such  men  would  draw 
extreme  conclusions,  nor  insist  on  their  premature 
adoption  by  others;  for  learning  is  modest. 

That  alcohol  can  be  easily  fatal ; that  it  is  hurtful 
always, — unless  taken  both  in  moderation,  and 
under  circumstances,  and  in  compounds,  and  in 
combinations,  adapted  to  the  physical  condition  and 
the  true  needs  of  the  individual, — there  is  no 
possible  dispute.  But  that  all  the  drinks  into 
which  it  enters,  are  to  be  of  course  dietetically 
rejected,  is  not,  thus  far,  the  verdict.  1ST  or  does  it 
yet  appear  that  any  experiments  have  settled  the 
boundaries  within  which  diet  shall  be  kept.  A 
physician  once  starved  to  death  a duck,  by  feeding 
it  solely  on  butter.  It  lived  three  weeks,  and  until 
the  butter  oozed  through  its  skin  and  dropped  from 
its  feathers.*  Yet  butter  is  not  a poison.  We 
know  very  well  that  a man  could  not  maintain 

*4Boussingault, — Chimie  Agricole,  p.  166 ; quoted  in  Treatise  on 
Physiology,  by  Prof.  John  C.  Dalton,  p.  10S. 


44 


health,  nor  even  life,  long,  on  water  to  drink  and 
sugar  to  eat.  Yet  neither  is  a poison.  Stark 

actually  died  in  the  experiment  of  trying  to  live  on 
cheese.  Yet  everybody  knows  that  cheese  is  a rich 
and  nutritious  food.  The  instances  might  he  indefi- 
nitely multiplied  of  proofs  in  our  common  observa- 
tion, of  the  inability  of  single  articles  of  acknowl- 
edged wholesome  and  nutritious  solid  food  to 
maintain  life  and  health,  used  singly  and  without 
variety.  Tor  example,  how  long  would  a man  five 
in  Havana,  on  pork  only?  How  long  would  a 
healthy  Greenlander  subsist,  amid  his  snows,  on 
oranges?  Or,  how  long  could  we,  in  Boston  even, 
live  on  either  ? The  common  experience  of  men 
certainly  goes  for  something.  Yow  the  common 
experience  of  many  nations  and  ages  having 
assigned  a place  in  the  foods  and  medicines,  to 
stimulating  drinks  of  some  kinds,  into  which  alco- 
hol enters — the  experiments  of  chemists  and  phys- 
iologists are  pursued,  when  made  in  the  interest  of 
truth  and  pure  science,  with  a view  to  detecting, 
identifying  and  comparing  their  modes  of  operation, 
and  correcting  the  errors  of  inadvertence  in  com- 
mon fife.  And  when  the  men  of  science  have 
come  to  any  substantial  agreement,  which  calls  on 
the  civil  state  to  interpose  and  alter  the  practice  of 


45 


society,  in  order  to  conform  it  to  the  decrees  of 
science,  we  shall  learn  it  from  the  men  of  science 
themselves;  we  shall  not  be  called  on  by  the 
unlearned  to  settle  such  disputes  of  the  learned  by 
an  Act  of  the  Legislature. 

Within  my  own  memory  Dr.  Sylvester  Graham 
taught  that  no  permanent  cure  for  intemperance 
could  be  found,  except  in  such  changes  of  personal 
and  social  customs  as  would  relieve  the  human 
being  of  all  desire  for  stimulants.  He  soon  applied 
the  idea  to  medicine,  so  that  the  prevention  and 
cure  of  disease,  as  well  as  the  remedy  for  intemper- 
ance, were  found  by  him  in  the  resort  of  all  man- 
kind, without  regard  to  age,  climate  or  condition, 
to  the  use  of  water  as  the  only  beverage,  and  the 
eating  of  vegetables  to  the  entire  exclusion  of 
animal  food.  And  I confess  that  he  seemed  to 
prove  it.  His  theories  were  ingenious,  fortified  by 
elaborate  argument.  They  would  have  been  very 
good,  save  that  almost  all  the  rest  of  mankind  saw 
that  they  were  not  true.  Even  some  of  the  very 
experiments  on  which  he  relied,  contradict  his  too 
rash  and  dogmatical  generalization. 


“ A little  learning  is  a dangerous  thing  : 
Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring.’ 


47 


Hacl  Graham  convinced  many,  as  for  a time  he 

* 

did  convince  a few,  then  we  might  to-day  have  been 
arguing  as  a question  of  legislative  prohibition,  the 
case  of  Rhine  wines  and  porter  in  company  with 
that  of  mutton  chops  and  beef  steaks,  all  being 
included  in  the  like  condemnation. 


II. 

Leaving  here,  gentlemen,  the  argument  on  the 
assumption  by  the  Prohibitionists  that  alcoholic 
beverages  are  essentially  poisonous , I pass  to  the 
argument  on  their  further  assumption,  that  the  use 
and  the  sale  of  alcoholic  beverages  are  essentially 
immoral. 

The  evils  of  this  world  are  too  great  to  render 
exaggeration  any  more  consistent  with  wisdom 
than  with  truth.  What  we  need  is  courage,  not 
cowardice,  for  the  controversy  against  them.  This 
world  is  a trying  one  to  live  in  at  all.  But  when 
its  discipline  is  complete  we  shall  go  hence.  After 
all,  the  moral  dangers  are  within  ourselves,  not  in 
the  objects  of  nature.  And  social  evils  find  their 
causes  mainly  in  the  falseness  and  disorder  of  the 
social  economy.  The  savage  ignorantly  ascribes 
malign  purposes  and  supernatural  powers  to  things 


46 


sometimes  the  most  inanimate  and  senseless.  He 
sees  them  in  some  near  relation,  real  or  fancied,  to 
woes  already  endured  or  evils  apprehended.  He 
seeks  to  conciliate  them  by  worship.  And  that  we 
justly  call  superstition.  But  civilized  man  is  not 
wholly  unlike  him.  Sometimes,  perceiving  that  in 
human  society,  in  affairs,  even  in  the  uses  of  natural 
things,  and  in  the  operation  of  the  passions  native 
to  the  very  constitution  of  the  race,  there  are  mani- 
fold abuses,  he  flees,  disheartened  and  disgusted, 
from  human  society,  abjures  affairs,  despises  nature 
and  all  her  loveliness,  and  contradicts  and  quarrels 
with  all  the  intimations  of  nature  within  himself. 

It  is  only  in  the  strife  and  actual  controversy  of 
life — natural,  human  and  free — that  robust  virtue 
can  be  attained,  or  positive  good  accomplished.  It 
is  only  in  similar  freedom  alike  from  bondage  and 
pupilage,  alike  from  the  prohibitions  of  artificial 
legislation  on  the  one  hand,  and  superstitious  fears 
on  the  other,  that  nations  or  peoples  can  become 
thrifty,  happy  and  great.  Will  you  venture  to 
adhere  to  the  effete  blunders  of  ’antiquated  despot- 
isms, in  the  hope  of  serving,  by  legal  force,  the 
moral  welfare  of  your  posterity  ? Will  you  insist 
on  the  dogma  that,  even  if  certain  gifts  of  nature 
or  science  are  not  poisons,  they  are  nevertheless  so 


48 


dangerously  seductive  that  no  virtue  can  be  trusted 
to  resist  them  ? But  when  .society  shall  have 
intrusted  the  keeping  of  its  virtue  to  the  criminal 
laws,  who  will  guaranty  your  success  in  the  experi- 
ment, tried  by  so  many  nations  and  ages,  resulting 
always  in  failure  and  defeat  ? Do  you  exclaim, 
that  the  permitted  sale  of  these  beverages,  fol- 
lowed as  it  must  be  by  some  use,  must  be  followed, 
in  turn,  by  some  drunkenness;  and  that  drunken- 
ness is  not  only  the  parent  cause  of  nearly  all  our 
social  woes,  but  that  it  is  impossible  to  maintain 
against  its  ravages  a successful  moral  war  ? To 
both  these  propositions,  moral  philosophy,  human 
experience,  and  history,  all  command  a respectful 
dissent. 

Reason,  experience  and  history  all  unite  to  prove 
that,  while  drunkenness  lies  in  near  relations  with 
poverty  and  other  miseries,  and  is  very  often  their 
proximate  cause,  it  is  not  true  that  it  is  the  parent, 
or  essential  cause,  without  which  they  would  not 
have  been.  And  to  the  teachings  of  reason,  expe- 
rience and  history,  «are  added  the  promises  of  Gospel 
Grace,  enabling  me  in  all  boldness,  to  confront 
the  fears  of  those  who  would  rest  the  hopes  of 
humanity  on  the  commandments  of  men. 


49 


The  evils  of  society,  in  our  own  country  and  in 
the  northern  nations,  have  always  tended  to  appear 
on  the  surface  in  the  form  of  this  sensual  indul- 
gence. And  yet,  the  essential  evil  has  always  been 
less  deeply  seated,  while  at  the  same  time,  the  hope 
of  social  regeneration  is  brighter,  within  them, 
than  among  some  other  peoples,  in  whom  the 
instinctive  love  of  liberty  is  weaker,  and  among 
whom  such  indulgence  is  comparatively  unknown. 

riling  in  1799,  Croker  says  in  his  “ Travels  in 
Spain”:— 

“ The  habitual  temperance  of  these  people  is  really  aston- 
ishing ; I never  saw  a Spaniard  drink  a second  glass  of 
wine.  With  the-  lower  order  of  people,  a piece  of  bread 
with  an  apple,  an  onion,  or  a pomegranate,  is  their  usual 
repast.” 

And  many  writers  and  travellers  at  different  peri- 
ods concur  in  describing  them  as  temperate,  frugal, 
and  even  abstemious  as  a rule,  testifying  that 
" drunkenness  is  a vice  almost  unknown  in  Spain 
among  people  of  a respectable  class,  and  even  very 
uncommon  among  the  lower  orders.” 

An  English  clergyman,  eight  years  ago,  in  1859, 
describing  a tour  through  Spain,  remarks,  that 
when  they  were  approaching  the  plains  of  Cas- 
tile:— 


7 


50 


“ It  had  now  become  quite  evident,  from  the  number  of 
beggars,  male  and  female,  adult  and  juvenile,  with  their 
tattered  brown  clothing  and  mahogany  complexion,  that  we 
were  at  length  in  veritable  Spain.”  * 

Again  lie  says:f — 

“ In  all  our  wanderings  through  town  and  country,  along 
the  highways  and  by-ways  of  the  land,  from  Bayonne  to 
Gibraltar,  we  never  saw  more  than  four  men  who  were  in 
the  least  intoxicated.  If  they  would  only  leave  off  those 
two  national  sins,  bad  language  and  misuse  of  the  knife, 
they  would  be  some  of  the  finest  peasantry  in  the  world.” 

Our  own  distinguished  fellow-citizen,  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  in  a series  of  letters  written  in 
1857,  says: — 

“ The  only  narcotic  in  which  the  Spaniards  indulge  to 
any  extent  is  tobacco,  in  favor  of  which  I have  nothing  to 
say  ; yet  it  should  be  remembered  in  extenuation,  that  they 
are  tempted  to  this  habit  by  the  want  of  something  else  to 
do ; that  they  husband  their  cigarritos  by  smoking  with 
great  deliberation,  making  a little  tobacco  go  a great  way, 
and  that  they  dilute  its  narcotic  fumes  with  those  of  the 
paper  in  which  it  is  folded.  With  regard  to  the  use  of  wine. 
I can  confirm  all  that  has  been  said  of  Spanish  sobriety  and 
moderation .” 

But  Spain,  though  once  prosperous  and  rich, 
became  in  spite  of  the  temperance  and  abstinence 


* Roberts’s  Autumn  Tour  in  Spain,”  p.  61. 


f pp.  320,  321. 


51 


of  her  people,  miserably  and  frightfully  poor.  Her 
manufactures,  once  the  means  of  employment  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  workmen,  passed  into 
decay  and  neglect.  Her  agriculture  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  century  failed  to  supply  wheat 
enough  for  the  consumption  of  her  people.  And 
notwithstanding  many  institutions  of  hospitality 
and  charity,  maintained  by  th<?  ecclesiastical  orders, 
and  by  contributions  from  the  public  funds,  the 
poor  are  so  numerous,  that  beggary  in  some  of  the 
provinces  is  considered  no  disgrace,  and  even 
students  have  been  known  to  occupy  their  vacations 
in  excursions  to  raise  by  begging,  the  means 
required  for  their  personal  support,  labor  being 
regarded  by  them  as  more  disreputable  than  asking 
alms.  Supremely  ignorant,  notwithstanding  the 
acknowledged  gravity,  sobriety,  sincerity  and  gen- 
erosity of  the  Spanish  character,  the  people  are 

. . , t 

miserably  poor  in  the  midst  of  fertility  of  almost 
tropical  exuberance.  And  their  country, — possess- 
ing within  herself  nearly  every  mineral  and  vegeta- 
ble production  needful  or  convenient  to  mankind, 
holding  numerous  ports,  and  a geographical  position 
commanding  greater  commercial  advantages  than 
any  other  country  in  Europe,  but  without  the 
idea  of  liberty, — sleeps,  a torpid  mass,  a giant 


52 


prostrate  and  powerless,  bound  by  the  principles 
and  traditions  of  five  hundred  years  ago.  Not- 
withstanding the  abstinence  of  her  people  from  the 
indulgence  of  the  bowl,  neither  her  future  nor  her 
present  would  offer  any  temptations  to  the  people 
of  New  England. 

Do  not  let  us  deceive  ourselves  into  reversing 
the  order  of  our  own  history.  If  drunkenness  is 
the  essential  parent  cause,  and  not  usually  the 
mere  concomitant  or  consequence,  of  social  degra- 
dation, there  ought  to  be  a time  found  somewhere 
far  back  in  the  former  ages,  when  our  own  ancestors 
were  sober,  virtuous  and  happy;  but  when,  visited 
by  the  seductive  fruit  of  the  vine,  and  falling  into 
the  snare  of  unwonted  and  alluring  temptation,  the 
shadow  of  a great  woe  came  over  them,  never  to 
pass  away  until  the  wine  shall  cease  to  redden  in 
the  cup.  But  the  truth  is  otherwise.  There  has 
never  been  any  such  day  of  innocence  and  happiness, 
since  Adam  was  banished  from  Eden.  And  vet,  it 
is  not  difficult  to  trace  back  the  steps  of  the  pro- 
gress of  that  country  from  which  most  Americans 
sprung,  to  times  long  before  the  introduction  of 
spirits,  or  wines,  or  beer,  or  even  ale  itself  into 
England. 


53 


The  Britons,  prior  to  the  Homan  conquest,  knew 
so  little  of  agriculture,  were  so  rude  and  barbarous, 
that  the  strongest  liquor  they  had,  was  mead,  or 
honey  mixed  with  water  and  allowed  to  ferment, — 
a product  of  the  rudest  and  simplest  kind,  and  of 
which  the  quantity  possible  must  have  been  of 
necessity  very  little.  But  nevertheless,  those  were 
days  of  the  spiritual  domination  of  the  Druids,  of 
the  darkest  superstition,  and  of  the  brutal  sacrifice 
of  innocent  human  victims. 

Under  the  Anglo-Saxons,  parents  are  known  to 
have  exposed  their  children  in  the  market  place 
for  sale  like  cattle.  The  poverty  of  the  poor  and 
the  helplessness  of  their  lot  were  such  that  on 
occasions  of  famine,  to  which  in  former  times, 
England,  rich,  fertile  and  merry,  but  ignorant  and 
unthrifty,  was  no  stranger,  many  of  them  who  were 
free,  having  no  means  of  living,  sold  themselves 
into  slavery.  During  all  the  feudal  ages,  private 
wars  raged  constantly.  The  feudal  lords  lived  in  a 
state  of  war  against  each  other,  and  of  rapine 
towards  all  mankind.  A great  portion  of  the  peo- 
ple were  helpless  bondmen.  All  Europe  was  a 
scene  of  internal  anarchy  during  the  middle  ages, 
and  though  England  was  less  exposed  to  the  scourge 
of  private  war  than  most  nations  on  the  conti- 


54 


nent,  slie  endured  tumultuous  rapine  and  frightful 
social  disorder.  The  whole  population  of  Eng- 
land, covering  a territory  seven  or  eight  times  as 
large  as  Massachusetts,  was  not,  five  hundred  years 
ago,  a million  greater  in  number  than  the  present 
inhabitants  of  our  own  Commonwealth.  "When 
Latin  ceased  to  be  a living  language,  the  newly 
formed,  or  modern  tongues,  not  being  used  in  pub- 
lic documents  or  correspondence,  the  very  use  of 
books  or  letters  was  almost  wholly  unknown  to 
the  people.  Schools,  confined  to  cathedrals  and 
monasteries,  and  exclusively  designed  for  ecclesias- 
tical purposes,  afforded  no  encouragement  or 
opportunity  to  the  laity.  It  was  rare  for  one  of 
them,  of  whatever  rank,  to  be  able  to  write  his 
name.  Even  the  minor  clergy  were  sometimes 
* unable  to  translate  into  their  own  language  the 
words  they  chanted  in  the  celebration  of  the  mass. 
The  barons  tyrannized  over  both  serfs  and  tenants, 
and  from  the  oppression  of  their  absolute  will  the 
humble  and  despised  could  expect  little  redress  and 
no  permanent  relief.  The  rudeness  of  agriculture, 
the  absence  of  enterprising,  intelligent  commerce, 
the  utter  poverty  of  science,  the  discouragement  of 
all  the  arts  by  the  nobles  who  scorned  everything 
but  arms,  kept  down  the  poor,  and  rendered  the 


55 


masses  both  hopeless  ancl  contemptible.  War, 
slavery  and  ignorance  could  not  fail  to  exhibit  as 
their  natural  concomitant,  the  coarse,  sensual  indul- 
gence of  appetite,  both  excessive  and  depraved. 
Revelry  and  wassail  distinguished  the  festivities 
and  rejoicings  of  victory  and  the  celebration  of 
public  events,  invaded  the  solemnities  of  the 
church,  and  divided  with  indolence  and  the  chase 
the  empire  of  private  life,  whenever  arms  were 
silent.  And  what  better  fate  or  fortune  could  have 
been  expected  for  the  conunon  poor,  the  serf,  the 
follower,  the  retainer,  than  the  humble  and  remote 
imitation  of  his  lord? 

The  people  were  saved  from  the  sense  of  insup- 
portable misery , of  conscious  degradation , and 
of  infinite  hopelessness , by  the  brutishness  of 
manners  and  their  capacity  for  low  enjoyments. 
Humanity,  like  Psyche  in  Grecian  fable,  endur- 
ing servitude  and  trial,  wandering  about  in  search 
of  her  lost  but  immortal  love,  is  invisibly  comforted 
and  sustained.  She  wears  always  the  wings  which 
will  one  day  unfold  themselves  for  flight,  when, 
purified  both  by  passion  and  misfortune,  she  is 
ready  for  happiness  in  re-union  with  the  lover 
whose  immortality  she  has  come  to  share.  Wan- 
dering, like  the  maiden  from  temple  to  temple, 


56 


# 


scorned,  buffeted  and  oppressed,  humanity  retreats 
behind  mortality,  which  shelters  while  it  beclouds 
the  soul.  A tender  and  divine  spirit  is  forever 
watching  over  her,  softening  calamity,  whispering 
hope,  providing  deliverance,  and  assisting  her  con- 
quest. By  a universal  law  of  nature,  matter  gravi- 
tates. But  by  a universal  spiritual  law,  the  soul 
aspires.  There  is  a limit  to  moral  disease.  There 
is  always  a balm,  and  a physician  in  Gilead.  The 
cure  is  often  slow;  but  the  patient  lives  forever. 

Descending  to  a late^  era,  I need  only  to  borrow 
Macaulay’s  vivid  picture  of  the  character  of  Eng- 
land during  the  century  between  the  Tudors  and 
the  Guelphs: 

“ There  is  scarcely  a page  of  the  history  or  lighter 
literature  of  the  seventeenth  century  which  does  not  contain 
some  proof  that  our  ancestors  were  less  humane  than  their 
posterity.  The  discipline  of  workshops,  of  schools,  of  private 
families,  though  not  more  efficient  than  at  present,  were  infi- 
nitely harsher.  Masters,  well  born  and  bred,  were  in  the  habit 
of  beating  their  servants.  Pedagogues  knew  no  way  of  impart- 
ing knowledge  but  by  beating  their  pupils.  Husbands,  of 
decent  station,  were  not  ashamed  to  beat  their  wives.  The 
implacability  of  hostile  factions  was  such  as  we  can  scarcely 
conceive.  Whigs  were  disposed  to  murmur  because  Staf- 
ford was  suffered  to  die  without  seeing  his  bowels  burned 
before  his  face.  Tories  reviled  aiid  insulted  Russell  as  his 
coach  passed  from  the  Tower  to  the  scaffold  in  Lincoln's  Inn 


57 


Fields.  As  little  mercy  was  shown  by  the  populace  to  suf- 
ferers of  a humbler  rank.  If  an  offender  was  put  into  the 
pillory,  it  was  well  if  he  escaped  with  life  from  the  shower 
of  brick-bats  and  paving-stones.  If  he  was  tied  to  the  cart’s 
tail,  the  crowd  pressed  round  him,  imploring  the  hangman 
to  give  it  the  fellow  well,  and  make  him  howl.  Gentlemen 
arranged  parties  of  pleasure  to  Bridewell  on  court  days,  for  the 
purpose  of  seeing  the  wretched  women  who  beat  hemp  there 
whipped.  A man  pressed  to  death  for  refusing  to  plead,  a 
woman  burned  for  coining,  excited  less  sympany  than  is 
now  felt  for  a galled  horse  or  an  over-driven  ox.  Fights, 
compared  with  which  a boxing-match  is  a refined  and  humane 
spectacle,  were  among  the  favorite  diversions  of  a large  part 
of  the  town.  Multitudes  assembled  to  see  gladiators  hack 
each  other  to  pieces  with  deadly  weapons,  and  shouted  with 
delight  when  one  of  the  combatants  lost  a finger  or  an  eye. 
The  prisons  were  hells  on  earth,  seminaries  of  every  crime, 
and  of  every  disease.  At  the  assizes,  the  lean  and  yellow 
culprits  brought  with  them  from  their  cells  to  the  dock  an 
atmosphere  of  stench  and  pestilence  which  sometimes  avenged 
them  signally  on  bench,  bar,  and  jury.  But  on  all  this  mis- 
ery society  looked  with  profound  indifference.  Nowhere 
could  be  found  that  sensitive  and  restless  compassion  which 
has,  in  our  time,  extended  a powerful  protection  to  the  fac- 
tory child,  to  the  Hindoo  widow,  to  the  negro  slave,  which 
peers  into  the  stores  and  water-casks  of  every  emigrant  ship, 
which  winces  at  every  lash  laid  on  the  back  of  a drunken 
soldier,  which  will  not  suffer  the  thief  in  the  hulks  to  be  ill- 
fed  or  over-worked,  and  which  has  repeatedly  endeavored  to 
save  the  life  even  of  the  murderer.”  * 

* Macaulay’s  History  of  .England,  Vol.  i.,  pp.  394,  393,  (Harper’s  octavo 
edition.) 


8 


58 


A hundred  years  ago,  in  the  habits  of  the  best 
Englishmen,  there  existed  the  traces  and  conse- 
quences of  the  old  demoralization.  England  was 
free.  The  long  agony  with  the  Stuarts  was  over. 
A new  era  had  begun,  of  fame,  of  prosperity,  of 
culture,  of  opportunity  for  the  people,  of  literature, 
of  ideas.  But  the  social  disease  was  not  cured. 
The  best  were  still  afflicted  by  it.  Drunkenness 
still  remained,  as  one  of  its  symptoms  and  expres- 
sions, on  the  upper  surface  and  in  the  purest 
society.  Bigotry,  both  religious  and  political,  was 
a repulsive  and  characteristic  feature  of  the  coun- 
try gentleman.  He  hated  his  neighbor,  of  different 
opinions,  because  they  differed.  The  machinery  of 
both  Whig  and  Tory  was  unlimited  bribery.  The 
" Folly  ” coffee-house  was  his  resort  in  town,  where 
rural  ladies  listened  to  words  of  compliment  from 
the  wits  and  beaux  of  the  time,  which  those  of  our 
own  time  would  not  dare  to  read.  The  duchess 
and  the  courtesan  were  alike  visitors,  where  the 
gay  maskers  indulged  in  the  allusions  and  jests  of 
a corrupt  taste  and  a licensed  opportunity.  " At 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,”  (says 
a recent  historian,)  "and  long  after,  we  see  no 
struggle  against  great  social  evils,  on  the  part  of 
the  clergy  or  the  laity.  Every  attempt  at  social 


59 


reform  was  left  to  the  legislature,  which  was 
utterly  indifferent  to  those  manifestations  of  wick- 
edness and  crime,  that  ought  to  have  been  dealt 
with  by  the  strong  hand.  Education,  in  any  large 
sense,  there  was  none.  Disease  pursued  its  rav- 
ages, unchecked  by  any  attempt  to  mitigate  the 
evils  of  standing  pools  before  the  cottage  door,  and 
pestilent  ditches  in  the  towns.  * * * There  were 
evils  so  abhorrent  to  humanity,  that  their  endur- 
ance, without  the  slightest  endeavor  to  mitigate  or 
remove  them,  was  an  opprobrium  of  that  age.  * 
The  horrible  state  of  the  prisons  was  well  known. 
The  nosegay  laid  on  the  desk  of  the  judge  at  every 
assize  proclaimed  that  starvation  and  filth  were 
sweeping  away  far  more  than  perished  by  the 
executioner,  terrible  as  that  number  was.  * * * 
London,  and  all  other  great  towns,  were  swarming 
with  destitute  children,  who  slept  in  ash-lioles,  and 
at  street  doors.  They  were  left  to  starve,  and  in 
due  course  to  become  thieves,  and  be  hanged.  * * 
One-fifth  of  the  whole  'population  were  paupers.”* 

Disease,  filth,  Ignorance,  licentious  manners, 
neglect  of  human  want  and  woe,  judicial  cruelty, 
and  pauperism ! It  needs  only  drunkenness  to 
complete  the  picture.  It  was  not  the  cause  of  all 

* Popular  History  of  England,  by  Charles  Knight,  Vol.  v.,  page  60. 


60 


this.  But  it  was  a necessary  concomitant;  a part 
of  the  natural  expression  of  an  almost  infinite  in- 
ward evil.  Ancl  I sometimes  wonder  whether,  in 
permitting  so  many  to  yield  to  this  merely  sensual 
indulgence  of  brutish  men , Divine  Providence  had 
not  saved  them  from  becoming  human  devils.  That 
feature  was  not  wanting,  in  the  age  to  which  I 
allude.  I will  allow  the  same  historian  to  finish 
the  description. 

Quoting  from  the  ” Guardian,”  he  goes  on  to 
• say:  A method  of  spending  one’s  time  agreeably 

is  a thing  so  little  studied,  that  the  common  amuse- 
ment of  our  young  gentlemen,  especially  of  such 
as  are  at  a distance  from  those  of  the  first  breeding, 
is  drinking.’  Yet  we  have  abundant  evidence  that 
those  ' of  the  first  breeding  ’ were  often  the  most 
intemperate.  The  moralists  were  not  exempt  from 
the  common  vice  of  our  young  gentlemen.  Swift 
says : ' I dined  with  Mr.  Addison  and  Dick  Stuart, 
Lord  Mountjoy’s  brother,  a treat  of  Addison’s. 
They  were  half  fuddled,  but  not  I,  for  I mixed 
water  with  my  wine.’  ” 

Gaming  was  the  universal  passion  of  the  reign 
of  Anne.  In  the  first  number  of  the  " Tatler,”  it 
is  said  of  Will’s  Coffee  House : " This  place  is  very 
much  altered  since  Mr.  Dryden  frequented  it. 


61 


Where  you  used  to  see  songs,  epigrams  and  sat- 
ires, in  the  hands  of  every  one  you  met,  you  have 
now  only  a pack  of  cards.  Into  these  places  of 
public  resort  the  lowest  sharpers  found  their  way; 
and  gentlemen  were  not  ashamed  to  stake  their 
money  against  the  money  of  the  most  infamous  of 
society.” 

In  Italy,  writes  Steele,  " a cobbler  may  be  heard 
working  to  an  opera  tune;  and  there  is  not  a 
laborer  or  Hfendicraftman  that,  in  the  cool  of  the 
evening,  does  not  relieve  himself  with  solos  and 
sonnets.”  But,  "on  the  contrary,  our  honest 
countrymen  have  so  little  inclination  to  music,  that 
they  seldom  begin  to  sing  until  they  are  drunk  ” 
Sir  J ohn  Hawkins  has  described  the  musical  enter- 
tainments which  were  offered  to  the  middle  classes 
at  this  period.  He  says  that  "the  landlords  of 
public  houses  hired  performers,  and  hither  came 
very  unrefined  audiences,  to  drink  and  to  smoke.” 

Writing  of  English  life  and  manners,  at  about 
the  end  of  the  last  century,  or  just  after  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution,  Miss  Martineau  thus  exhibits  the 
same  connection  of  sensual  vulgarity  on  the  sur- 
face, with  deep  and  pervading  contempt  of  the 
sacredness  of  humanity  at  the  core : — "x* 

* History  of  England,  from  1816  to  1854,  with  an  Introduction,  1S00  to 
1815.  Vol.  i.,  p.  28,  29. 


62 


“ While  the  course  of  daily  living  was  hard  to  the  work- 
ing man,  and  his  future  precarious,  the  Law  was  very  cruel. 
The  records  of  the  Assizes  in  the  Chronicle  of  Events  are 
sickening  to  read.  The  vast  and  absurd  variety  of  offences 
for  which  men  and  women  were  sentenced  to  death  by  the 
score,  out  of  which  one-third  or  so  were  really  hanged,  gives 
now  an  impression  of  devilish  levity  in  dealing  with  human 
life ; and  must,  at  the  time,  have  precluded  all  rational  con- 
ception on  the  part  of  the  many,  as  to  what  Law  is,  to  say 
nothing  of  that  attachment  to  it,  and  reverence  and  trust  in 
regard  to  it,  which  are  indispensable  to  the  true  citizen 
temper.”  • 

“ The  general  health  was  at  a lower  average  among  all 
these  distresses  than  was  even  safe  for  a people  who  might 
at  any  moment  have  to  struggle  for  their  existence.  The 
habit  of  intemperance  in  wine  ivas  still  prevalent  among  gen- 
tlemen, so  that  we  read  of  one  public  man  after  another 
whose  death  or  incapacity  was  ascribable  to  disease  from 
drinking.  Members  of  the  cabinet,  members  of  parliament 
and  others,  are  quietly  reported  to  have  said  this  and  that 
when  they  were  drunk.  The  spirit  decanters  were  brought 
out  in  the  evenings  in  middle-class  houses,  as  a matter  of 
course ; and  gout  and  other  liver  and  stomach  disorders 
were  prevalent  to  a degree  which  the  children  of  our  time 
have  no  conception  of.  During  the  scarcity,  the  diseases  of 
scarcity  abounded,  of  course.” 

But  allow  me  in  a moment  to  relieve  the  picture. 
You  all  know  how  mighty  and  universal  has  been 
the  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  axe 
lias  been  laid  at  the  root  of  the  tree.  There  has 


63 


been  a patient,  hopeful,  scientific  and  learned,  as 
well  as  a pious,  philanthropy.  The  disease  was 
a radical  disease.  The  cure  is  a radical . reform . 
The  recognition  of  the  people,  of  their  wants  and 
woes,  their  essential  capacity,  their  rights,  their 
progressive  tendency,  their  citizenship,  their  hu- 
manity, the  oneness  of  man  with  his  brother  man, 
the  benignant  fatherhood  of  Almighty  God, — this 
recognition,  which  exposes  the  littleness  of  worldly 
distinction  in  the  presence  of  this  unity  of  the 
brotherhood,  has  waked  up  the  intelligence,  the 
heart  and  soul  of  England,  to  the  work  of  studious 
and  persistent  reform,  as  radical  as  the  malady  of 
which  Love  is  the  healer  and  Justice  the  medicine. 

Dating  back  from  the  middle  to  the  beginning 
of  this  nineteenth  century,  what'  had  been  accom- 
plished in  this  work  ? The  vice  of  drunkenness 
had  gradually  disappeared,  with  the  coarseness,  of 
which  it  was  the  natural  expression,  giving  way  to 
those  humanizing  and  refining  influences,  with 
which  sensual  and  brutal  manners  are  inconsis- 
tent. 

" 0ne  of  the  most  distinguished  of  Frenchmen 
comes  as  ambassador  to  England  in  1840,  and 
regarding  with  a philosophical  intelligence  both  the 
great  and  the  humble,  he  thus  contrasts  the  past 


64 


with  the  present.  Looking  back  to  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  he  says  that  there  were  at  that 
time,  even  in  the  elevated  classes  of  English  soci- 
ety, many  remains  of  gross  and  disorderly  manners. 
Precisely  because  England  had  been  for  centuries 
a country  of  liberty,  the  most  opposite  results  of 
that  liberty  had  been  developed  in  startling  con- 
trasts. A puritan  severity  was  maintained  side  by 
side  with  the  corruptions  of  the  courts  of  Charles 
II.  and  the  first  Georges;  habits  almost  barbarous 
kept  their  hold  in  the  midst  of  the  progress  of  civ- 
ilization; the  splendor  of  power  and  of  riches  had 
not  banished  from  the  higher  social  regions  the 
excesses  of  a vulgar  intemperance.  Even  the  ele- 
vation of  ideas  and  the  supremacy  of  talent  did  not 
always  carry  with  them  delicacy  of  taste ; for  the 
Sheridan  who  had  been  electrifying  parliament  by 
his  eloquence  might  the  same  night  have  been 
picked  up  drunk  in  the  streets.” 

" M.  Guizot  goes  on  to  say,  ' It  is  in  our  time 
that  these  shocking  incongruities  in  the  state  of 
manners  in  England  have  vanished,  and  that  Eng- 
lish society  has  become  as  polished  as  it  is*  free ; 
where  gross  habits  are  constrained  to  be  hidden  or 
to  be  reformed,  and  where  civilization  is  day  by  day 
showing  itself  more  general  and  more  harmonious.’ 


65 


Two  conditions  of  progress,  he  continues,  which 
rarely  go  together,  have  been  developed  and  attained 
during  half  a century  in  England.  The  laws  of 
morality  have  been  strengthened,  and  manners  have 
at  the  same  time  become  softer,  less  inclined  to 
violent  excesses,  more  elegant.”  * 

This  eminent  French  writer  and  statesman  says 
also  that  the  double  progress  of  a stricter  morality  ? 
and  a refinement  of  manners,  was  not  confined  to  the 
higher  and  middle  classes,  but  was  very  apparent 
amongst  the  bulk  of  the  people.  " The  domestic 
life,  laborious  and  regular,  extends  its  empire  over 
these  classes.  They  comprehend , they  seek,  they 
enjoy,  more  honest  and  more  delicate  pleasures  than 
brutal  quarrels  or  drunkenness.  The  amelioration 
is  certainly  very  incomplete.  Gross  passions  and 
disorderly  habits  are  always  fermenting  in  the  bosom 
of  obscure  and  idle  misery  • and  in  London,  Man- 
chester, or  Glasgow,  there  are  ample  materials  for 
the  most  hideous  descriptions.  But  take  it  all  in 
all,  civilization  and  liberty  have  in  England,  during 
the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century,  turned  to  the 
profit  of  good  rather  than  of  evil.  Religious  faith, 
Christian  charity,  philanthropic  benevolence,  the 

* Popular  History  of  England,  by  Charles  Knight,  Vol.  viii.,  pp.  401,  402. 

9 


66 


intelligent  and  indefatigable  activity  of  the  higher 
classes,  and  good  sense  spread  amongst  all  classes, 
have  battled,  and  now  battle  effectually  against  the 
vices  of  society,  and  the  evil  inclinations  of  human 
nature.”  * 

This  progress  was  not  mechanical.  It  was 
dynamic.  It  was  not  Jewish,  nor  Mohammedan; 
but  it  was  Christian.  It  was  not  due  to  law,  but 
to  liberty.  It  came  not  from  the  thunders  of  burn- 
ing Sinai,  but  from  the  silent  inward  voice. 

A writer  in  the  " Democratic  Review,”  in  1848, 
discussing  the  topic  of  " Poverty  and  Misery  ” in 
their  relation  to  " Reform  and  Progress,”  mainly  in 
the  direction  of  politics,  laments  the  apparent  defeat 
of  the  people  in  the  successive  popular  struggles  of 
the  old  world.  He  records  the  continued  existence 
of  the  old  poverty  and  misery,  with  modifications 
only,  notwithstanding  the  promise  which  heralded 
the  revolutions  of  that  period.  He  turns  from 
cause  to  cause,  from  the  nostrum  of  one  political 
doctor  to  the  palmistry  of  another,  and  slides  at  last 
into  an  exclamation  of  despair  at  the  experience  of 
the  old  world,  and  the  prospect  at  home,  in  view  of 
the  unknown  cause  of  what  he  discovered  at  last 

Guizot — “ Memoires  pour  servir  £i  l’histoire  de  mon  temps,”  Tome  r., 

1862. 


67 


was  " a general  and  obstinate  disease .”  " From  sta- 

tistics lately  published,”  he  remarks,  when  alluding 
to  France,  ” it  appears  that  one-eighth  of  her  pop- 
ulation are  habitually  clothed  in  rags;  that  nearly 
three-fifths  never  eat  wheaten  bread;  that  very 
nearly  two-thirds  wear  wooden  clogs  instead  of 
shoes;  * * * and  more  than  ten-elevenths  of  the 
whole  population  cannot  afford  to  consume  sugar 
and  animal  food.”  How  much  of  this  continued 
depression  and  poverty  was  to  be  ascribed  to  drink- 
ing the  wines  of  France  may  be  seen  in  the  fact 
that  a more  efficient  prohibition  was  found  in  the 
very  poverty  of  the  masses  than  ever  slumbered  in 
the  arm  of  legislative  power.  For  " more  than  three- 
fourths  ” of  the  whole  population  were  shown  by 
the  same  statistics,  and  declared  by  the  same  writer, 
in  the  same  sentence,  to  be  so  poor  that  " they  can- 
not get  wine  to  drink,”  notwithstanding  that  is  and 
was  a staple  of  the  country.  The  truth,  I think, 
may  be  discovered  by  looking  straight  down  to  the 
bottom  of  the  well.  The  French  people  inherited 
the  consequences  logically  flowing  from  earlier  bar- 
barism, from  Roman  conquests,  from  tribal,  local, 
private  and  national  wars,  from  the  feudal  servi- 
tudes, partly  seen  in  a debt  mortgaging  the  lands 
of  the  people,  and  weighing  them  down  by  an 


68 


annual  interest  exceeding  that  of  the  public  debt 
of  Great  Britain,  leaving  the  proprietors  and  cul- 
tivators not  more  than  twenty-four  per  cent,  of  the 
whole  annual  production,  for  the  maintenance  of 
their  families,  while  the  low  estate  of  agriculture, 
(which  means  again  the  absence  of  science  and 
machinery,)  gave  an  average  yield  of  only  fourteen 
bushels  of  wheat,  or  twenty  bushels  of  potatoes,  to 
an  acre  of  ground. 

Thirty  years  ago,  at  the  accession  of  Victoria, 
the  public  mind  had  been  already  somewhat  aroused 
by  the  report  of  a distinguished  architect,  concern- 
ing a district  in  London  in  which  dwelt  squalid  mis- 
ery, in  perishing  houses,  undrained,  unventilated, 
in  pestilential  alleys,  where  the  typhus  and  every 
form  of  epidemic  and  contagion  always  rioted. 
Soon  after,  inquiries  promoted  by  parliament  were 
extended  through  formal  commissions  into  other 
large  cities  of  England  and  Wales,  and  into  Scot- 
land. Mr.  Chadwick’s  report*  exhibits  the  frightful 
result  of  a death-rate  among  these  poor  unfortu- 
nates of  the  lowest  classes,  doubling  the  mortality 
of  their  opulent  neighbors.  This  mortality  was 
largely  owing  to  habits  of  filth  and  intemperance, 


Keport  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission. 


69 


but  those  habits  were  induced  by  the  unavoidable  deg- 
radation of  physical  causes  which  no  virtue  could 
override.  "In  closed  courts  where  the  sunshine 
never  penetrated ; where  a breath  of  fresh  air  never 
circulated ; where  noxious  vapors  filled  every  corner 
from  the  horrible  cesspools;  where  the  density  of 
population  was  so  excessive,  as  in  itself  to  be  suffi- 
cient to  produce  disease;  where  a single  room  was 
often  occupied  by  a whole  family,  without  regard  to 
age  or  sex, — the  wonder  is  how  the  poor  lived  at 
all,  uncared  for  by  the  rich  who  knew  them  not, 
neglected  by  their  employers,  who,  in  some  trades 
exposed  them  to  labor  in  workshops  not  far  supe- 
rior in  ventilation  to  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta. 
Amongst  these  careless  and  avaricious  employers, 
the  master  tailors  were  the  most  notorious,  who 
would  huddle  sixty  or  eighty  workmen  close 
together,  nearly  knee  to  knee,  in  a room  fifty  feet 
long  by  twenty  feet  broad,  lighted  from  above, 
where  the  temperature  in  summer  was  thirty  degrees 
higher  than  the  temperature  outside.  Young  men 
from  the  country  fainted  when  they  were  first  con- 
fined in  such  a life-destroying  prison:  the  maturer 
ones  sustained  themselves  by  gin , till  they  perished 
of  consumption,  or  typhus,  or  delirium  tremens.”* 


Popular  History  of  England,  by  Charles  Knight,  Vol.  viii.,  p.  392. 


70 


One  of  the  most  eminent  of  living  physiologists 
says,  "Mr.  Chadwick  has  shown  that  many  are 
driven  to  drinking  gin  as  affording  a temporary 
relief  to  the  feelings  of  depression  and  exhaustion 
produced  by  living  in  a noxious  atmosphere.”  * 

Sir  James  Tennent,  seven  years  ago,  addressing 
the  institution  for  promoting  Social  Science,  speaks 
of  the  condition  of  the  Irish  laborers  in  England, 
of  whom  much  complaint  had  been  made  for  their 
habits  of  tippling  and  pauperism.  So  late  as  1860, 
he  describes  them  as  in  the  possession  of  " unwhole- 
some dwellings  in  the  most  unhealthy  portions  ” of 
the  great  cities,  in  whose  " comfortless  apartments 
domestic  enjoyment  is  little  known  and  the  inmates 
are  inured  from  infancy  to  miasma,  damp  and 
decay.”  " Their  food,”  he  says,  was  " in  quality,  of 
the  poorest  by  which  existence  can  be  maintained,” 
and  they  enjoyed  " the  single  excitement  of  intoxi- 
cation.v 

The  testimony  of  the  patient  and  philosophical 
Liebig  is  given,  with  the  emphasis  of  positive  opin- 
ion. " In  many  places  destitution  and  misery  have 
been  ascribed  to  the  increasing  use  of  spirits. 
This  is  an  error.  The  use  of  spirits  is  not  the 
cause,  hut  an  effect,  of  poverty.  It  is  an  exception 

* Psychological  Inquiries,  by  Sir  Benjamin  C.  Brodie,  p.  73. 


71 


from  the  rule  when  a well-fed  man  becomes  a spirit 
drinker.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  laborer 
earns  by  his  work  less  than  is  required  to  provide 
the  amount  of  food  which  is  indispensable  in  order 
to  restore  fully  his  working  powers,  an  unyielding, 
inexorable  law  or  necessity  compels  him  to  have 
recourse  to  spirits.  He  must  work,  but  in  conse- 
quence of  insufficient  food,  a certain  portion  of  his 
working  power  is  daily  wanting.  Spirits,  by  their 
action  on  the  nerves,  enable  him  to  make  up  the 
deficient  power  at  the  expense  of  his  body;  to  con- 
sume to-day  that  quantity  which  ought  naturally  to 
have  been  employed  a day  later.  He  draws,  so  to 
speak,  a bill  on  his  health,  which  must  always  be 
renewed,  because,  for  want  of  means  he  cannot 
take  up;  he  consumes  his  capital  instead  of  his 
interest ; and  the  result  is  the  inevitable  bankruptcy 
of  his  body.”* 

Bad  as  the  condition  is  of  the  laboring  classes  in 
England,  Mr.  McCulloch,  the  political  economist, 
writing  in  1854,  affirms  that  the  condition  of  most 
classes  of  work-people  had  improved  since  the 
close  of  the  American  war;  that  they  were  better 
fed,  better  clothed  and  better  lodged,  than  at  any 
former  period.  " Drunkenness  and  immorality,” 


Letters  on  Chemistry,  3d  London  edition,  p.  455. 


72 


he  adds,  " if  they  have  not  materially  abated,  have 
not  increased;  while  the  manners  of  all  classes 
have  been  humanized  and  softened.”  He  affirms 
also,  that  " great  improvement  had  taken  place  in 
the  health  and  in  the  longevity  of  the  population.” 
Admitting  that  " the  condition  of  the  laboring  class 
is  far  from  prosperous,”  and  that  " the  middle 
classes  have  always  evinced  far  more  prudence  and 
forethought  than  those  below  them,”  he  testifies 
that  the  work-people  of  the  present  day  are  less 
vicious  and  improvident,  and  more  industrious,  than 
their  predecessors  of  any  former  age.  But,  why 
have  not  the  humblest  laboring  class,  while  accom- 
plishing their  own  measure  of  progress,  equalled 
their  superiors  of  the  middle  class  in  the  ratio  of 
advancement?  It  is  simply  because — as  a wise 
writer  says — ” wretchedness  is  incompatible  with 
excellence : you  can  never  make  a wise  and  virtu- 
ous people  out  of  a starving  one.” 

Nor  can  more  be  demanded  of  a body  of  men,  on 
whom  has  accumulated  the  weight  of  centuries  of 
wrong.  For  the  great  mass  of  the  English  poor  is 
nothing  but  the  continuation  of  the  race  of  villeins 
or  slaves,  whose  servitude  to  the  baron  has  been 
exchanged  for  dependence  on  the  parish  and  subor- 
dination to  the  powers  of  society  scarcely  less 


73 


degrading.  The  emancipated  serf  had  lived  a life 
of  thoughtless  and  hopeless  dependence,  without 
instructed  prudence  or  trained  forethought,  in  the 
midst  of  those  who  contemned  his  weakness  and 
his  low  estate.  In  times  of  pervading  ignorance, 
and  when  society  was  too  unskilled  and  unthrifty 
to  protect  itself  against  constantly  recurring  famine, 
he  had  received  the  form  of  personal  freedom,  but 
not  its  power.  And  thus  the  vices  and  sensuality 
of  a thousand  years,  and  the  essential  evil  out  of 
which  they  grew,  descending  and  reappearing  in 
some  variety  but  substantial  identity,  age  by  age, 
linger  longest  and  will  die  out  the  latest  in  that 
class  of  men  rendered  comparatively  worthless 
by  servitude. 

But  even  they  have  illustrated  the  recuperative 

energy  of  human  nature, — the  power  of  moral 

agencies  and  awakened  intelligence  to  renew  and 

restore.  I cannot  but  give  honor  to  the  social 

reformers,  preaching  the  truths  of  nature  and  her 

science,  for  the  deliverance  of  the  suffering  poor, 

and  I give  honor  also  to  that  very  class  of  weary 

and  depressed  laborers,  for  their  response.  The 

degradation  of  circumstances  has  yielded  already. 

Theirs  never  was  a voluntary  depravity  which 

elected  drunkenness  for  the  mere  love  of  gin,  and 
10 


74 


accepted  misery  for  the  sake  of  the  bowl.  As 
social  science  advances,  as  society  itself  leads/so 
they  will  continue  to  follow.  They  may  yet  be 
brutish,  yea,  and  drunken  too;  but  drunkenness 
‘will  disappear  as  the  light  shines  in  on  the  darkened 
intellect , as  opportunity  develops  manhood , as  hope 
visits  and  encourages  the  heart. 

Crime  and  tippling  are  so  linked  together,  that  if 
we  could  banish  tippling,  the  judges  have  a thou- 
sand times  declared  that  crime,  unable  to  live  alone, 
would  follow  too.  But  crime  is  already  going. 
The  influences  of  which  I speak  have  already 
diminished  crime,  by  striking  at  the  common  causes 
of  crime  and  drunkenness  both.  The  population 
of  England  and  Wales  in  1849,  is  given  in  the 
"Statesman’s  Year  Book”  at  17,552,000,  and  in 
1863,  (or  fourteen  years  later,)  at  20,554,137 — an 
increase  of  a little  more  than  three  millions.  But 
the  number  of  convictions  for  crime  in  the  same 
period  descended  from  21,001  to  15,799, — a dimi- 
nution of  criminal  offenders  of  5,202,  or  a little  less 
than  twenty-five  per  cent.  In  other  words,  while 
in  1849  the  number  of  criminal  offenders  was  in 
the  proportion  of  one  in  835  of  the  aggregate  pop- 
ulation, in  1863  the  fraction  had  fallen  to  one  in 
1,300.  The  average  number  of  children  attending 


school  had  more  than  doubled.  Similar,  though 
less  striking  results,  appear  in  Scotland.  And  in 
Ireland,  the  apparent  diminution  of  criminal  offence 
is  so  remarkable  and  unprecedented,  that  while 
something  must  perhaps  be  allowed  to  improve- 
ment in  police  and  judicial  organization,  I am  con- 
fident that  the  social  history  of  the  island  is  a still 
more  brilliant  example  of  the  powerful  moral  effect 
produced  by  the  material  and  educational*  advance- 
ment of  a people. 

Less  than  three  years  ago,  John  Bright,  the 
great  political  and  social  reformer,  in  a speech 
opposing  in  the  House  of  Commons  a bill  for  more 
restrictive  treatment  of  the  sale  of  alcoholic  bever- 
ages, bears  his  own  testimony  to  the  progress 
made  in  those  classes  most  accessible  to  moral 
influence  and  the  motive  of  ideas : — 

“ I am  old  enough  to  remember,  when  among  those  classes 
with  which  we  are  more  familiar  than  with  the  working 
people,  drunkenness  was  ten  or  twenty  times  more  common 
than  it  is  at  present.  I have  been  in  this  House  twenty 
years,  and  during  that  time  I have  often  partaken  of  the 
hospitality  of  various  members  of  the  House,  and  I must 
confess  that  during  the  whole  of  those  twenty  years,  I have 
no  recollection  of  having  seen  one  single  person,  at  any  gen- 
tleman’s table,  who  lias  been  in  the  condition  which  would 
be  at  all  fairly  described  by  saying  that  he  was  drunk.  And 


76 


I may  say  more, — that  I do  not  recollect  more  than  two  or 
three  occasions,  during  that  time,  in  which  I have  observed 
* * * that  any  gentleman  had  taken  so  much  as  to  impair 
his  judgment. 

“ That  is  not  the  state  of  things  which  prevailed  in  this 
country  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago.  We  know,  therefore,  as 
respects  this  class  of  persons, — who  can  always  obtain  as 
much  of  these  pernicious  articles  as  they  desire  to  have, 
because  price  to  them  is  no  object, — that  temperance  has 
made  great  way ; and  if  it  were  possible  now  to  make  all 
classes  in  this  country  as  temperate  as  those  of  whom  I have 
just  spoken,  we  should  be  amongst  the  very  soberest  nations 
of  the  earth.” 

If  I am  asked  to  account  for  the  disappearance 
of  drunkenness  among  the  more  favored  classes, 
I appeal  to  the  same  cause  which  has  purified  lit- 
erature, ameliorated  the  criminal  code,  banished 
torture  and  religious  persecution,  wrought  out 
" Catholic  emancipation,”  extended  the  ballot,  estab- 
lished " model  houses  ” and  " ragged  schools,” 
encouraged  innocent  amusements,  cultivated  music 
and  the  arts,  dismissed  the  barbarity  of  duelling, 
descended  with  Howard  and  Elizabeth  Fry  into 
the  prisons,  has  flown  with  Florence  Nightingale 
to  the  battle-field,  and  penetrated  the  various 
abodes  where  " lonely  want  retires  to  die,”  into  all 
the  wretched  retreats  of  misery,  and  all  the  dun- 
geons where  society  exacts  the  penalty  of  crime. 


17 


I appeal  to  the  same  universal  spirit  and  the  same 
unerring  law  which  renders  it  "more  blessed  to 
give  than  to  receive.”  Intelligence,  a higher, 
purer,  more  liberal  culture,  wider  views  and  more 
knowledge,  and  all  the  material  and  scientific,  as 
well  as  moral  characteristics  of  modern  civilization 
have  combined  to  make  the  Englishman  more 
" brave,  tender  and  true ; ” therefore  more  a gentle- 
man of  self-respect  and  refined  manners,  as  well  as 
a man  more  reverent  of  the  divine  image  seen  in 
all  our  common  human  nature.  Could  Plantaga- 
nets,  Tudors  and  Stuarts,  wielding  despotic  powers; 
could  the  sovereign  pontiff  fulminating  the  pro- 
fessed decrees  of  heaven,  and  denouncing  the  ter- 
rors of  hell ; could  all  their  powers  combined,  their 
earthly  penalties  and  eternal  pains,  have  accom- 
plished this  moral  regeneration?  ]STo,  gentle- 
men, you  know  they  could  not  have  done  it. 
As  the  Apostle  taught  of  the  Early  Church,  so 
true  philosophy  declares  of  the  secular  corporation 
of  human  society ; that  we  are  one  tody  and  mem- 
bers one  of  another.  The  same  God  who  revealed 
something  more  than  was  yet  known  of  the  laws  of 
the  natural  universe  to  one,  taught  cunning  inven- 
tions in  mechanism  to  another,  spread  out  the 
broad  pages  and  unfolded  the  sealed  books  of 


78 


human  history  to  another,  and  uncovered  to  an- 
other the  mysteries  of  this  throbbing  heart  and 
this  scheming  brain,  has  in  like  manner  inspired 
others  with  loftier  ideas  of  Right,  and  anointed 
their  eyes  with  clearer  visions  of  Duty.  All  these 
have  become  leaders  of  the  people,  and  co-operators 
in  the  great  social  regeneration. 

The  same  phenomena  have  been  manifested  on 
our  own  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Like  causes  here 
have  in  like  manner  purified,  softened,  refined  the 
habits  of  social  life  at  home.  And  the  excesses  of 
gluttony  and  drunkenness  which  used  to  mar  the 
festivities  of  former  times  have,  so  far  as  I have  ever 
been  a witness,  and  as  the  proof  shows,  disap- 
peared. But  there  has  never  been  on  earth  any 
human  governmental  power  which  could  have 
brought  it  to  pass.  The  law  possesses  absolutely 
no  reforming  power.  It  can  punish,  can  terrify, 
hold  in  forcible  restraint.  It  cannot  convert  nor 
can  it  touch  the  springs  of  feeling  or  of  thought. 
Unconvinced,  untouched,  unconverted,  do  you  sup- 
pose the  ingenuity  and  the  armies  of  the  world 
could  have  devised  a statute  and  concentrated  a 
force  which  could  have  dominated  personal  habits 
in  those  spheres  of  society,  and  have  made  any 


79 


permanent  and  pervading  impression  on  social 
conduct  and  private  manners? 

Drunkenness  was  naturally  one  of  the  forms 
which  vice  assumed  in  Hew  England.  So  far  as  it 
depended  on  the  mere  fact  of  opportunity  for 
indulgence,  it  was  partly  due  to  our  nearness  to 
the  West  Indies,  and  to  the  trade  by  which  our 
lumber  was  exchanged  for  their  molasses.  The 
peculiar  product  of  our  distillation  was  the  result 
of  the  lumber  trade  with  the  West  India  Islands, 
just  as  the  production  of  whiskey  is  now  the  result 
of  the  superabundant  grain  crops  of  the  Western 
States.  A hard  climate,  much  exposure,  little 
variety  in  food,  and  great  want  of  culinary  skill, 
few  amusements,  the  absence  of  light  cheering 
beverages,  a sense  of  care  and  responsibility  culti- 
vated intensely,  and  the  prevalence  of  ascetic  and 
gloomy  theories  of  life,  duty  and  Providence — 
have,  in  time  past,  all  combined  to  increase  the 
perils  of  the  people  from  the  seductive  narcotic. 
A man  whose  virtue  was  weak,  or  whose  discour- 
agements were  great,  or  whose  burdens  were 
heavy,  or  in  whom  the  spirit  waged  unequal  war 
with  the  allurements  of  the  flesh;  or  even  one  in 
whom  a certain  native  gayety  strove  with  the  un- 
welcome exactions  of  the  elders,  was  often  easily 


80 


its  victim.  Independence,  intelligence,  self-respect, 
broader  views,  kinder  and  tenderer  sympathies,  the 
cultivation  of  the  finer  tastes,  the  love  and  appre- 
ciation of  beauty,  a truer  humanity — not  to  speak 
of  better  social  theories — all  made  more  general 
and  pervading  in  our  society — have  gradually  by 
divine  favor  been  made  instrumental  in  the  deliver- 
ance of  our  people  from  that  bondage.  I have  not 
mentioned  a greater  conscientiousness  in  the  cat- 
alogue of  causes,  for  I do  not  believe  that  conscien- 
tiousness has  ever  been  greater  than  in  New  Eng- 
land, nor  that  it  is  greater  now  than  it  was  in  other 
times.  It  was  a characteristic  of  New  England 
from  the  first.  It  was  always  a source  of  greatness 
in  her  people.  But  it  has  been  often  morbid  and 
even  superstitious. 

The  evil  of  drunkenness  needed  to  be  met  by  a 
gracious  Gospel  kindling  the  heart,  not  by  a crush- 
ing sense  of  guilt  goading  the  conscience.  The 
temperance  reformation  sprung  up  out  of  the  heart 
of  a deeply  moved  humanity.  It  was  truly  and 
genuinely  a Gospel  work.  It  was  a mission  of  love 
and  hope.  And  the  power  with  which  it  wrought 
was  the  evidence  of  its  inspiration.  "While  it  held 
fast  by  its  original  simplicity,  while  it  pleaded,  with 
the  self-forgetfulness  of  Gospel  discipleship,  and 


81 


sought  out  with  the  generosity  of  an  all-embracing 
charity,  while  it  twined  itself  around  the  heart- 
strings and  quietly  persuaded  the  erring,  or  with  an 
honest  boldness  rebuked  without  anger — it  was 
strong  in  the  Lord  and  in  the  power  of  his  might, 
verifying  the  prophecy  of  old,  that  one  might  chase 
a thousand  and  two  put  ten  thousand  to  flight.  But 
when  it  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  its  Evangelists 
and  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  centurions  and 
the  hirelings ; when  it  became  a part  of  the  capital 
of  political  speculation,  and  went  into  the  jugglery 
of  the  caucus;  when  men  voted  to  lay  abstinence 
as  a burden  on  their  neighbors,  while  they  felt  no 
duty  of  such  abstinence  themselves,  (even  under 
the  laws  of  their  own  creation)  ; when  the  Gospel, 
the  Christian  Church  and  the  ministers  of  religion 
were  yoked  to  the  car  of  a political  triumph ; then 
it  became  the  victim  of  one  of  the  most  ancient 
and  most  dangerous  of  all  the  delusions  of  history. 

Mr.  Frederick  Hill,  an  English  barrister,  and 
formerly  "Inspector  of  Prisons,”  in  a work  pub- 
lished in  London  in  1853,  discussed  in  a spirit  of 
intelligent  philanthropy  the  topic  of  " Crime : its 
Amount,  Causes  and  Remedies.”  He  declares  his 
belief,  " as  the  result  of  many  years  of  inquiry  and 

observation,”  that  crime  "is  steadily  decreasing  and 
11 


82 


taking  a milder  and  milder  form ; ” and  that  this 
decrease  is  not  only  positive  but  comparative;  so 
that  notwithstanding  the  increased  wealth  and  pop- 
ulation, " and  estimating  the  extent  of  crime  by  the 
average  amount  of  privation,  fear  and  suffering 
which  it  causes  to  each  member  of  society,  the 
decrease  is  great  indeed.” 

He  classifies  the  " chief  causes  ” of  crime  thus : 
" 1.  Bad  training  and  ignorance.  2.  Drunkenness 
and  other  kinds  of  profligacy.  3.  Poverty.  4. 
Habits  of  violating  the  laws,  engendered  by  the 
creation  of  artificial  offences.  5.  Other  measures 
of  legislation  interfering  unnecessarily  in  private 
actions  or  presenting  examples  of  injustice.  6. 
Temptations  to  crime  caused  by  the  probability  of 
escape  or  subjection  to  insufficient  punishment.” 

Two  of  these  are  very  suggestive.  Artificial 
Offences,  and  Meddlesome  Legislation,  and  that  felt 
to  be  unjust,  are  indeed  causes  of  crime  of  which 
the  philosophical  legislator  cannot  afford  to  be 
ignorant.  Artificial  offences  put  a large  class  of 
people,  and  often  that  the  least  discriminating  and 
instructed,  into  needless  antagonism  with  the  law. 
Confounding  of  moral  distinctions  on  the  side  of 
the  law,  begets  a corresponding  confusion  in  the 
mind  of  the  citizen.  If  the  law  treats  the  sale  of 


83 


a mug  of  beer,  or  sweet  cider,  as  of  like  delin- 
quency with  the  crime  of  larceny,  how  long  will  it 
take  the  humble  and  the  unlearned  to  conclude  that 
the  law  is  either  a sham,  unworthy  of  veneration, 
or  else  to  jump  to  the  converse  of  the  first  proposi- 
tion, and  vote  the  larceny  of  an  article  to  be  no 
worse  than  the  selling  of  the  beer  or  the  cider? 
So,  therefore,  every  statute  denouncing  the  penal- 
ties of  the  criminal  law  against  men,  in  violation 
of  the  commonly  received  sense  of  justice  con- 
cerning human  relations  in  the  civil  state,  becomes, 
by  reason  of  that  very  excess,  a generator  of  evil. 
The  laws  under  which  men  are  punishable,  can 
have  no  moral  value  unless  the  appeal  can  also  be 
made  to  the  consciences  of  men ; challenging  them 
boldly  to  the  confession  of  the  apostle,  "Where- 
fore the  law  is  holy,  and  the  commandment  holy, 
and  just,  and  good.” 

But,  I pray  your  attention  now  to  the  first  three 
in  the  category  of  causes  of  crime:  Ignorance 
and  bad  training — Drunkenness  and  other  kinds  of 
profligacy — Poverty.  And  when  you  shall  have 
seen,  (what  all  investigation  proves,)  how  few  ever 
fall  into  the  criminal  class,  who  have  had  the  advan- 
tages of  the  simplest  elements  of  learning— the 
acquisition  of  the  power  to  read  and  write  well 


84 


their  own  tongue;  who  have  even  been  taught  any 
trade  involving  skill;  and  who  have  enjoyed  immu- 
nity from  the  miseries  of  poverty;  you  then  will 
see  how  drunkenness  itself  yields  to  motive  and 
encouragement. 

Against  the  common  notion  that  the  poorer 
classes  commit  fewer  penal  offences  when  they  are 
straitened  by  seasons  of  unusual  poverty,  than 
they  do  when  they  are  not  so  poor  as  to  be  unable 
to  get  drink,  Mr.  Hill  opposes  the  result  of  his 
wide  observation  as  Inspector  of  Prisons.  Agahist 
this  opinion  Mr.  Hill  sets  " the  general  fact  that,  in 
periods  of  prosperity,  our  [their]  prisons  are  com- 
paratively empty.”  The  truth  was  undoubtedly 
just  this — and  it  is  undoubtedly  true  here  as  in 
England — the  ignorant,  neglected,  poverty-stricken 
and  forlorn  are  also  drunken. 

But,  do  you  urge  that  if  you  can  maintain  your 
statute  of  prohibition,  you  will  remove  the  tempta- 
tion of  drunkenness  out  of  their  way — gaining 
thus  much,  at  least;  and  that,  besides,  you  will 
gain  a better  chance  to  attack  ignorance  and 
poverty  with  success?  I reply  that  if  men  were 
simply  intelligent  machines  there  might  be  some- 
thing in  your  plan.  The  error  in  your  plan  is  that 
you  allow  nothing  for  the  human  will,  nothing  for 


85 


the  elasticity  and  enterprise  with  which  it  accom- 
modates itself  to  new  exigencies,  whenever  yon 
challenge  a direct  combat  between  the  law  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  purpose  of  even  the  humblest  of 
the  people  on  the  other  hand.  The  denunciations 
of  positive  law,  unsustained  by  a successful  appeal 
to  the  prevailing  sense  of  right  and  justice,  are 
little  else  than  a trumpet-call  to  battle.  Let  the 
effort  be  the  prohibition  of  a dangerous  but  seduc- 
tive beverage,  and  let  the  period  be  a dark  age,  or 
let  the  manners  of  the  time  be  generally  gross  and 
coarse,  or  let  the  amusements  of  the  people  be  few 
and  their  intelligence  low,  or  let  there  be  a class  of 
underfed  and  dejected  laborers,  or  beggars — and 
the  effect  will  be  as  disastrous  as  the  experience  of 
England  in  1737,  of  Sweden  long  ago,  and  of 
Scotland.  Both  McCulloch  in  his  book  on  " Taxa- 
tion,” and  Porter  in  his  " Progress  of  the  Nation,” 
have  portrayed  the  failure  of  the  English  experi- 
ment. The  reaction  was  both  swift  and  irresistible. 

In  the  " charges  ” of  Recorder  Hill  of  Birming- 
ham, whose  long  and  earnest  devotion  to  the 
removal  of  drunkenness  entitles  him  to  universal 
gratitude,  we  find  a discussion  of  English  prohibi- 
tion. He  affirms  that  " the  impediments  thrown  in 
the  way  of  the  venders  of  alcoholic  drinks,  partly 


86 


by  the  imposition  of  duties  on  the  manufacture  or 
importation  of  the  article,  and  partly  by  the  system 
of  licenses,  had  diminished,  or  at  all  events  kept  in 
check  the  consumption  of  intoxicating  liquors. 
We  need,  gentlemen,  no  statistics  to  prove  to  us, 
that  the  state  of  the  country  in  1830,  was  much 
better  in  regard  to  temperance  than  it  was  a century 
before  that  period.”  But  the  philanthropic  Recorder 
utters  one  sentence  in  describing  the  fate  of  the 
legislation  of  1737,  [which  was  the  same*  statute 
alluded  to  in  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Derby,]  which 
(coming  from  a judge,  in  whose  heart  both  the  idea 
of  liberty,  and  the  sentiment  of  humanity  had  alike 
a share,)  is  an  emphatic  admonition  to  ourselves. 
It  is  in  these  very  words : " And  doubtless  it  could 

only  have  been  successf  ul  among  a people,  who  to 
the  sensuality  and  ignorance  of  the  English  popu- 
lace should  have  added  the  slavish  obedience  of  the 
Russian  serf 1” 

In  Sweden,  notwithstanding  the  laws  against 
intoxication,  rigorously  enforced,  and  those  forbid- 
ding the  gift  or  the  sale  of  spirituous  liquors  to 
workmen,  servants,  soldiers,  minors,  &c.,  the  distil- 
lation by  the  people  in  their  own  houses  carried  up 
the  production  of  spirits  to  an  annual  average  of 
ten  gallons  for  each  inhabitant.  In  Scotland,  we 


87 


are  informed  by  the  Temperance  Prize-Essay  of 
Doct.  Lees,  that  in  the  second  century,  Argadus, 
the  administrator  of  the  realm,  pulled  down  the 
houses  of  the  sellers  of  strong  drink,  confiscated 
their  goods  and  banished  the  men ; that  in  the  ninth 
century  Constantine  II.  added  the  punishment  of 
death  to  the  taverners  who  resisted  the  decree; 
that  in  the  sixteenth  century,  although  there  were 
no  public  taverns  known,  the  citizens  brewed  their 
own  ale,  " their  usual  drink,”  and  they  entertained 
the  travellers;  that  in  just  one  hundred  years  later, 
multitudes  of  drunken  beggars  infested  Scotland, 
and  in  plentiful  years,  robbed  poor  people  living 
remote  from  neighbors,  and  used  to  meet  in  the 
mountains  feasting  and  rioting  for  days  together, 
and  that  on  all  public  occasions  they  were  found, 
both  men  and  women,  " perpetually  drunk.”  The 
sheriff  of  Lanarkshire,  Mr.  Allison,  testified*  in 
1838,  that  at  every  tenth  house  in  Glasgow  spirits 
were  sold,  and  that  the  whiskey  drunk  in  Glasgow 
was  probably  twice  or  thrice  as  much  as  in  any 
similar  population  on  the  globe. 

The  report  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
State  Charities  of  Massachusetts,  just  printed  (cov- 
ering the  year  1866,)  declares  in  these  emphatic 

* Porter’s  Progress  of  the  Nation,  p.  679. 


88 


words:  " It  is  notorious  that  the  great  mass  of 
criminals  is  made  up  of  the  poor , the  ill-taught , 
the  ill-conditioned , and , in  a double  sense , the 
unfortunate 

" The  proportion  in  the  Commonwealth  of  those 
who  cannot  read  and  write,  among  persons  capable 
of  crime,  is  between  six  and  seven  per  cent.,  wliile 
the  proportion  of  criminals  who  cannot  read  and 
write,  for  the  last  ten  years,  has  been  between 
thirty  and  forty  per  cent,  or  more  than  five  times  as 
great.'” 

" Out  of  11,260  prisoners,  only  429,  or  less  than 
one  in  twenty-five,  are  reported  as  ever  having 
owned  the  value  of  $1,000.” 

The  Secretary  mentions  that  7,343,  or  about  two- 
thirds  of  this  number,  are  set  down  as  intemperate, 
which  he  deems  too  low  an  estimate. 

Those  figures  show  that  the  social  law  I have  so 
often  affirmed,  holds  good  in  Massachusetts,  and  up 
to  the  present  time.  It  is  from  " the  poor,  the  ill- 
taught,  the  ill-conditioned,  and  in  a double  sense, 
the  unfortunate,”  that  the  ranks  of  pauperism  and 
insanity,  and  crime  and  drunkenness,  are  yearly 
reinforced.  It  is  true  that  the  Secretary  speaks  of 
drunkenness  as  the  ” chief  occasion  of  crime.” 
And  that  it  is  connected  or  associated  with  crime, 


89 


being  one  of  the  symptoms  of  the  same  disease  of 
which  crime  is  another,  one  of  the  manifestations  of 
social  degradation,  one  of  the  proximate  causes  too 
of  many  an  offence,  is  true.  But — let  me  put  a 
case  which  will  illustrate  the  true  relation  of  drink- 
ing to  crime.  A few  years  ago,  a young  man,  not 
twenty  years  old,  who  had  never  been  to  school,  nor 
to  church,  had  never  learned  his  letters,  had  never 
heard  the  blessed  name  of  Jesus,  save  when  pro- 
fanely uttered,  urged  by  the  desire  of  his  wife  for 
money,  and  goaded  by  her  taunts,  loaded  his  gun 
with  powder  and  shot,  and  loaded  himself  with 
whiskey  and  gunpowder,  and  marched  forth  to  the 
highway,  and  shot  to  death  another  man,  (then  trav- 
elling his  rounds  to  deliver,  as  it  happened,  liquors 
to  his  country  customers,)  and  robbed  him  on  the 
spot.  At  his  trial  nearly  all  the  witnesses,  being 
residents  of  the  same  neighborhood,  unable  to  write 
their  names,  made  their  mark  only,  on  the  certifi- 
cate-book of  the  officer.  I suppose  this  murder  is 
reckoned  among  the  crimes  chargeable  to  drinking. 
And,  perhaps,  the  mixture  of  whiskey  and  gun- 
powder which  he  drank,  blunted  his  nerves  and 
calmed  his  agitation,  and  thus  fortified  his  audacity, 
to  the  extent  of  enabling  him  to  do  what  would 
otherwise  have  been  too  much  for  him.  "Without 


12 


90 


such  drink,  perhaps,  and  without  a gun,  certainly,  he 
would  never  have  shot  his  victim . But  the  purpose  of 
violence  and  robbery  was  formed  before  he  drank. 
The  crime  was  sufficiently  complete,  as  a purpose  of 
the  mind,  without  the  draught.  "What  made  him  a 
felon  in  the  purpose  of  his  heart?  What  degraded 
him  into  an  ignorant  heathen,  living  in  the  midst  of 
a society  where  the  fashions  and  customs  and 
desires  of  modern  civilization  serve  to  inflame  the 
natural  passions  of  those  who  are  forbidden  to 
share  in  its  opposing  influences  of  refinement  and 
religion?  If  you  should  urge  the  prohibition  of 
alcoholic  drinks  because  of  such  an  event,  attribu- 
ting the  event  to  their  having  passed  the  lips  of  the 
felon — in  one  word,  charging  the  murder  to  the 
whiskey — let  me  ask  you  what  you  would  say  about 
the  thousand  or  thousands  of  the  young  men,  who 
no  doubt,  drank  on  that  same  day,  in  the  same 
county,  and  whose  reputations  are  unspotted  by 
offence?  But — those  young  men,  you  will  reply, 
did  not  drink  to  madness,  or  inebriation.  Then,  it 
was  not  the  use  of  the  draught,  but  its  abuse — vol- 
untary and  wicked — which,  logically,  you  ought  to 
hold  up  to  rebuke,  and  hold  out  as  a warning.  Xor 
is  that  all.  There  were  many  young  men  that  very 
day,  who  drank  when  they  ought  to  have  abstained, 


91 


who  drank  foolishly,  dangerously,  intemperately — 
hut  who  otherwise  committed  no  offence.  Why 
were  not  they,  too,  felons,  or  at  least  peace-break- 
ers? Why  did  they  not  even  overstep  the  bounds 
of  apparent,  public  decorum?  Because  they  had 
culture,  means  of  high  enjoyment,  were  restrained 
by  fine  influences  and  social  happiness;  because 
they  were  not  of  " the  poor,  the  ill-taught,  the  ill- 
conditioned,  and  in  a double  sense,  the  unfortunate.” 

When  you  charge  crime  to  drunkenness,  as  one 
of  the  frequent  proximate  causes  of  crime;  and 
when  you  charge  the  sinking  of  many  a man  into 
deeper  degradation,  by  abandoning  hope,  and  aban- 
doning himself  to  drinking  as  one  of  the  seductive 
forms  of  sensuality,  you  are  right.  But  much  that 
I hear,  leads  me  to  dread  the  return  to  our  Chris- 
tian community,  of  that  pharisaic  morality  which 
substitutes  a ritual  conformity,  in  matters  not 
essential  in  nature  nor  by  the  divine  law,  for  the 
heart  of  love  and  the  embrace  of  charity. 

The  report  of  the  Secretary,  in  1864,  avows  the 
belief  " that  no  less  than  three-fourths  of  what  is 
technically  called  crime  among  us,  is  the  direct 
result  of  poverty  and  its  attendant  evils.”  A year 
later,  alluding  to  that  remark,  he  adds,  " I did  not 
mean  to  be  understood  that  mere  lack  of  money  is 


92 


a potent  cause  of  crime.  There  is  a poverty  which 
is  honorable  and  conducive  to  virtue,  just  as  there 
is  an  affluence  which  tends  to  the  growth  of  every 
vice.  But  that  degree  of  poverty  which  excludes 
education,  which  abases  and  finally  destroys  self- 
respect,  which  breeds  disease,  indolence  and  vice, 
is  conspicuous  in  every  civilized  country,  and  con- 
spicuous as  a curse.  Of  such  did  the  wise  man 
say,  ' The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their  poverty.’  ” 

M.  Dupuy,  the  Director  of  the  French  prisons, 
in  his  report  for  1863,  exhibits  a diagram  showing 
that,  for  twenty  years,  crime  against  property  in 
France  has  risen  and  fallen  with  the  price  of  grain. 

And  it  is  a fact  in  remarkable  confirmation  of 
the  theory  of  these  gentlemen,  that  in  our  own 
Commonwealth,  crime  diminished  not  only  during 
the  years  of  the  rebellion,  but  was  less 
during  the  very  last  year,  and  has  not  at  any- 
time risen  to  the  amount  of  detected  crime  existing 
before  the  war.  The  number  of  women  committed 
in  1866,  was  ten  per  cent,  less,  and  the  number  of 
children  twenty-five  per  cent,  less,  than  in  1865. 
ISTot  even  the  flow  of  bad  whiskey  with  which,  on 
the  evidence,  the  whole  country  is  suffering  a 
deluge,  has  been  able  to  counteract  the  moral 
advantages  to  the  humbler  classes  gained  from  the 


93 


pay,  bounties,  state  aid  and  high  wages  of  the  last 
few  years.  There  was  a constant  accumulation  of 
sayings,  all  over  the  Commonwealth,  among  per- 
sons in  humble  life,  which  is  evidence  of  increased 
comfort,  sure  to  produce  greater  hopefulness  and 
self-respect. 

Still  does  not  poverty  owe  its  own  origin  often- 
times to  drunkenness?  Undoubtedly,  yes.  So  also 
is  it  due  often  to  luxury  and  idleness  originating 
in  bad  moral  training,  the  sudden  acquisition  of  un- 
earned wealth,  leading  to  habits  of  self-indulgence 
degenerating*  into  drunkenness  and  other  vices. 
But,  drunkenness  in  our  own  modern  society,  end- 
ing in  either  pauperism  or  crime,  in  one  of  good 
training,  grounded  in  reasonable  intelligence,  with 
the  means  of  comfort,  and  supported  by  the  inspi- 
rations of  hope,  is  a rare  and  exceptional  phenome- 
non. Drunkenness  is,  however,  one  of  several 
causes  immediately  generating  crime  and  pauper- 
ism— the  reduction  of  which  to  the  minimum,  is  one 
of  the  studies  and  aims  of  civilization.  Yet,  the 
etfort  to  reduce  them  by  a war  on  the  material 
abused  to  produce  drunkenness,  is  scarcely  less 
philosophical,  than  would  be  an  attempt  to  prevent 
idleness  and  luxury,  by  abolishing  property  and 
imitating  the  legislation  of  Sparta. 


94 


I aver  that  a statute  of  prohibition,  aiming  to 
banish  from  the  table  of  an  American  citizen  by 
pains  and  penalties,  an  article  of  diet,  which  a large 
body  of  the  people  believe  to  be  legitimate,  which 
the  law  does  not  even  pretend  to ’exclude  from  the 
category  of  commercial  articles,  which  in  every 
nation,  and  in  some  form  in  all  history,  has  held  its 
place  among  the  necessities  or  the  luxuries  of 
society,  is  absurdly  weak,  or  else  it  is  fatal  to  any 
liberty.  Whenever  it  will  cease  to  be  absurdly 
weak,  society  by  the  operation  of  moral  causes, 
will  have  reached  a point  where  it  will  have  become 
useless ; or  else  it  will  be  fatal  to  any  liberty,  since, 
if  not  useless,  but  operated  and  fulfilled  by  legal 
force,  its  execution  will  be  perpetrated  upon  a body 
of  subjects  in  whose  abject  characters  there  will  be 
combined  the  essential  qualities  which  are  needful 
to  cowardice  and  servility. 

Do  you  tell  me,  that  no  beverage  into  which 
alcohol  enters,  used  in  cooking,  or  placed  upon  the 
table,  fitly  belongs  to  the  catalogue  of  foods? 

I answer:  That  is  a question  of  science , which 
neither  governor  nor  legislature  has  any  lawful 
capacity  to  solve  for  the  people. 


95 


Do  you  tell  me,  then,  that  whether  the  catalogue 
be  expurgated  or  not,  all  such  food  is  unwholesome 
and  unfit  to  be  safely  taken? 

I answer:  That  is  a question  of  dietetics.  And 
it,  is  for  the  profession  of  medicine.  There  is,  in 
principle,  no  odds  between  proscribing  an  article  of 
diet  and  prescribing  a dose  of  physic,  by  authority 
of  law.  The  next  step  will  be  to  provide  for  the 
taking  of  calomel,  antimony  and  Epsom  salts  by 
Act  of  the  General  Court. 

Do  you  tell  me,  however,  that  all  such  beverages, 
in  their  most  innocent  use,  involve  a certain  dan- 
ger; that  possibly  any  one  may , probably  many, 
and  certainly  some  will , abuse  it,  and  thus  abuse 
themselves;  and  by  consequence  that  all  men,  as 
matter  of  prudence,  and  therefore  of  duty,  ought 
to  abstain  from  and  reject  it. 

I answer:  That  is  a question  of  morals,  for  the 
answer  to  which  we  must  resort  to  the  Bible,  or 
to  the  Church,  or  to  the  teachings  of  moral  philos- 
ophy. The  right  to  answer  it  at  all,  or  to  pretend 
to  any  opinion  upon  it,  binding  the  citizen,  has 
never  been  committed  by  the  people,  in  any  free 
government  on  earth,  to  the  decision  of  the  secular 
power.  If  the  State  can  pass  between  the  citizen 
and  his  Church,  his  Bible,  his  Conscience  and  God, 


96 


upon  questions  of  his  own  personal  habits,  and 
decide  what  he  shall  do,  on  merely  moral  grounds, 
then  it  has  authority  to  invade  the  domain  of 
thought,  as  well  as  of  private  life,  and  prescribe 
bounds  to  freedom  of  conscience.  There  is  no 
barrier,  in  principle,  where  the  government  must 
stop,  short  of  the  establishment  of  a State  Church, 
prescribed  by  law,  and  maintained  by  persecution. 

Do  you  tell  me  that  the  using  of  wine  or  beer 
as  a beverage,  however  temperately,  is  of  danger- 
ous tendency  by  reason  of  its  example?  Do  you 
insist  that  the  temperate  use  of  it  by  one  man  may 
be  pleaded  by  another  as  the  occasion  and  a,pology 
for  its  abuse? 

I answer:  that  if  the  government  restrains  the 
one  man  of  his  own  just,  rational  liberty  to  regulate 
his  private  conduct  and  affairs,  in  matters  innocent 
in  themselves,  wherein  he  offends  not  against 
peace,  public  decorum,  good  order,  nor  the  per- 
sonal rights  of  any,  then  the  government  both 
usurps  undelegated  powers,  and  assumes  to  punish 
one  man  in  advance  for  the  possible  fault  of 
another.  The  argument  that,  because  one  man 
may  offend,  another  must  be  restrained,  is  the 
lowest  foundation  of  tyranny,  the  corner-stone 
of  despotism.  Liberty  is  never  denied  to  the 


97 


people  anywhere,  on  the  ground  that  liberty  is 
denied  to  be  good  or  right,  in  itself.  The  uni- 
versal pretext  of  every  despotism  is,  that  liberty 
is  dangerous  to  society, — that  is,  that  the  people 
are  unfit  to  enjoy  it. 

Do  you  tell  me  that  these  arguments  have  a 
tendency  indirectly  to  encourage  and  defend  use- 
less and  harmful  drinking,  and  that  silence  would 
have  been  better — for  the  sake  of  a great  and  holy 
cause? 

I answer:  that  He  who  governs  the  universe 
and  created  the  nature  of  man,  who  made  freedom 
a necessity  of  his  development,  and  the  capacity 
to  choose  between  good  and  evil  the  crowning  dig- 
nity of  his  reason,  knew  better  than  to  trust  it  to 
the  expedients  of  political  society.  The  great  and 
holy  cause  of  emancipation  from  vice  and  moral 
bondage,  is  moral,  and  not  political. 

It  used  to  be  thought  right  to  burn  a man’s  body 
for  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  It  used  to  be  thought 
that  to  suppress  heresy  and  false  teachers  deceiving 
the  people,  was  mercy  to  the  heretic  and  the  false 
teacher  themselves,  while  it  protected  the  people 
against  perversion  and  spiritual  ruin.  The  motive 
was  not  bad,  but  the  philosophy  was  fatal.  The 
better  the  motive,  the  sincerer  the  men,  the  more 

13 


98 


disastrous  was  the  policy.  So  now,  if  dishonest 
and  despotic  men  alone,  from  love  of  power  and 
not  of  human  welfare,  should  appeal  to  this 
machinery,  to  work,  against  men’s  wills,  their 
moral  renovation,  the  plan  would  lose  more  than 
half  its  danger.  But  the  bad  precedents  good 
men  establish  to-day,  in  the  weakness  of  their 
faith  in  better  means,  had  men  use  to-morrow  for 
bad  purposes  and  with  worse  motives.  Meanwhile, 
aiming  at  compulsory  conformity  to  your  creed  of 
artificial  virtue,  the  dissentients,  even  if  submissive, 
regarding  themselves  merely  as  the  victims  of  a 

dominant  asceticism,  are  made  deaf  to  moral 

/ 

teachings,  impatient  of  the  preacher,  haters  of 
his  doctrine,  and  defiant  at  heart. 

Gentlemen,  I maintain  the  positions  I have 
assumed,  and  enforce  them  by  arguments,  because 
I believe  those  positions  to  be  true,  and  the  argu- 
ments sound.  I believe  it  is  safe,  expedient  and 
wise  to  stand  by  the  truth.  If  the  Catholic  priest, 
uttering  the  united  voice  of  all  the  bishops  and 
minor  clergy  of  the  principal  ecclesiastical  body 
in  Christendom,  [see  testimony  of  Rev.  James 
A.  Healey,]  claims  no  power  to  declare  that  to 
be  a sin,  which  Almighty  God  has  not  made  to 
be  a sin,  neither  can  Protestant  minister  nor  pop- 


99 


ular  convention.  But,  I cannot  stand  in  the  atti- 
tude ' of  defence.  If  the  doctrine  is  true ; if  the 
teachings  of  science  are  so;  if  the  argument  is 
sound,  then  I charge  back  upon  all  those  who, 
in  the  spirit  of  jesuitical  philosophy  would  sacri- 
fice the  truth,  science  and  argument,  to  a supposed 
moral  expediency,  that  they — in  the  service  of  moral- 
ity— are  unsettling  its  foundations  in  the  confidence 
of  men. 

Do  you  suppose  that  the  adherents  of  the  Homan 
Catholic  Church,  or  the  many  thousands  of  other 
persuasions,  whose  opinions  have  been  declared 
by  the  reverend  and  learned  men,  belonging  to 
Protestant  denominations,  who  have  denied 
before  this  Committee  the  moral  validity  of  the 
theory  of  prohibition,  will  accept  the  dogmas  of 
a Protestant  Pope,  although  indorsed  by  a self- 
created  convention,  or  enacted  by  a secular  gov- 
ernment? Do  you  suppose  that  the  people  of 
every  class  and  persuasion, — taught  by  professors 
and  practitioners  of  medical  science  of  every  school 
to  take  wines  and  beer  as  tonics,  and  restoratives, 
and  as  part  of  their  diet,  in  illness,  in  age,  or  on 
occasions  of  physical  depression — will,  in  their 
hearts,  believe  your  declaration  that  they  are 
essentially  and  characteristically  poisonous?  Do 


100 


you  think  that  the  children  at  our  firesides  will 
believe  that  the  apostle,  (in  the  unworthy  phrase  of 
modern  discussion,)  was  a "rummy”  and  a per- 
verter,  when,  instead  of  commanding  total  absti- 
nence, he  enjoined  freedom  from  excess  of  wine? 
Do  you  imagine  they  will  forget,  that  he  who  made 
the  best  wine  which  the  guests  enjoyed  at  the 
marriage  feast  in  Galilee,  (because  He  came  " eat- 
ing and  drinking”  while  John  the  Baptist  was  a 
Rhzarite  and  drank  no  wine,)  was  aspersed  by  the 
Jewish  Pharisees  as  a " wine  bibber  and  a friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners  ” ? 

The  people  and  the  children  are  not  blind  to  the 
inconsistencies  and  sophistries  of  those  who  claim 
to  lead  them.  They  can  distinguish  the  truths  of 
the  Gospel,  and  the  practical  dictates  of  Reason, 
from  the  controversial  theories  of  " contentious 
conscientiousness.” 

I have  a few  words  to  say  on  the  statistics.  Many 
gentlemen  called  by  the  remonstrants,  gave  opin- 
ions based  on  the  presumed  existence  of  facts 
which,  if  not  known  to  exist,  can  afford  no  ground 
of  opinion.  If  known , they  could  have  been 
proved,  by  reference  to  the  ordinary  means  of  sta- 
tistical information.  For  the  purpose  of  aiding  the 
Committee  to  arrive  at  the  truth,  we  brought  the 


101 


evidence  of  such  gentlemen  to  the  test  of  cross- 
examination;  in  every  instance  showing  that  their 
opinions,  whenever  they  seemed  at  first  to  have 
been  deductions  from  such  facts,  were  in  reality,  at 
best,  only  the  guesses  of  honest,  but  pre-occupied 
judgments.  Now  there  was  one  gentleman  whose 
fame  in  statistics,  in  philanthropy  and  in  med- 
icine, had  led  to  his  employment  by  the  national 
government  to  prepare  the  volume  of  " Mortality” 
in  the  series  of  volumes  containing  the  results  of 
the  census  of  1860 — I mean  Dr.  Edward  Jarvis. 
An  ardent  opponent  of  all  "ardent  spirits,”  he  would 
have  been  for  the  remonstrants  the  safest  possible 
witness,  had  the  truth  been  trustworthy.  He  was 
the  best  witness  for  them  to  have  called,  had 
they  only  desired  the  best  evidence.  Besides,  I 
had  alluded  to  his  work,  in  my  cross-examinations. 
And  on  the  last  day  of  their  testimony,  one  of  the 
most  intelligent  and  fair-minded  of  their  witnesses, 
when  pressed  in  cross-examination  by  the  facts 
shown  in  the  statistics  of  Dr.  Jarvis’s  volume, 
repeatedly  called  in  question  the  reliability  of  the 
census  reports.  The  Doctor,  (who  knew  better 
than  anybody  else,)  was  in  the  presence  of  the 
Committee  during  the  larger  part  of  the  sitting. 
He  had  also  been  in  the  hall,  with  the  witnesses, 


102 


through  the  whole  day  oil  Wednesday,  and  several 
times  before.  I had  early  notified  the  remonstrants 
that  I desired,  should  they  call  him  to  the  stand, 
to  have  it  done  when  present  myself. 

They  used  up  Wednesday,  and  they  used  up 
Friday;  (Thursday  I was  absent  in  court;)  but 
Dr.  J arvis  was  kept  silent,  while  very  unimportant 
things  were  put  in  proof.  At  last,  five  minutes 
after  the  time  of  the  sitting  had  been  exhausted, 
and  the  chairman  had  declared  an  adjournment,  Dr. 
J arvis  Avas  called  by  Rev.  Dr.  Miner  to  the  stand, 
and  the  special  favor  granted,  of  ten  minutes  for  him 
to  make  a statement.  He  read  some  passages 
from  the  French  treatise  of  M.  Morel,  on  the 
" Degenerescences  de  l’Espece  Humaine,”  about  the 
evil  effects — exhibited  in  sterility,  impotence,  in- 
sanity, idiotcy,  and  the  like — of  the  " abuse  ” of  alco- 
hol, and  what  Morel  scientifically  terms,  " chronic 
alcoholism,” — touching  all  which  there  is  no  dispute. 
He  then  produced  and  put  into  the  case  some  tab- 
ular matter,  not  read  by  us,  nor  to  us;  when  the 
necessity  of  clearing  the  hall  for  the  sitting  of  the 
House  itself,  ended  the  testimony.  JSTor  ivas  any 
opportunity  possible  for  cross-examination.  I 
have  no  idea  that  Dr.  Jarvis  desires  anything  but 
the  truth,  of  which  he  is  an  earnest,  toilsome  in- 


103 


vestigator,  with  an  enthusiasm  for  a dry  mass  of 
figures,  which  he  is  always  willing  to  trust,  " hit 
where  it  will.”  The  remonstrants  had  seemed,  on 
the  record,  to  have  called  Dr.  Jarvis,  and  they  had 
seemed  to  have  got  us  into  the  position  of  voluntarily 
omitting  to  cross-examine.  But  what  Dr.  Jarvis 
had  to  say  as  a statistician,  no  one  was  enabled 
either  to  hear  or  to  read.  I made  no  complaint  at 
the  time.  I knew  that  if  I should  object  to  the  allow- 
ance of  the  ten  minutes,  it  would  seem  ungracious 
to  a venerable  and  learned  man,  and  perhaps  be 
otherwise  misconceived.  Besides,  I thought  then 
(and  so  I think  now)  that  the  remonstrants,  by 
their  stroke  of  apparent  finesse,  when  fully  under- 
stood, would  only  gain  a loss. 

When  we  depart  from  the  simplicity  of  truth  as 
it  is  found  in  nature,  in  the  lives  of  the  great 
exemplars  of  our  race,  and  in  revealed  religion, 
and  go  to  hewing  out  for  ourselves  the  broken 
cisterns  of  merely  human  ingenuity,  we  are  not 
unlikely  to  tend  to  run  the  experiment  into  palpa- 
ble extremes,  and  to  try  it  too  often. 

Let  me  add : in  regard  to  Morel,  it  appears  that 
his  dissertation  on  “ chronic  alcoholism  ” is  founded 
on  observation  of  200  cases,  and  that,  of  these, 


104 


tliirty-five  were  cases  in  which  the  ungovernable 
appetite  for  excess  was  caused  by  disease  .* 

Of  the  sheets  handed  in  from  Doctor  Jarvis,  I 
am  obliged  to  confess  that  it  has  been  impossible 
yet  fully  to  explore  their  figures  or  even  to  decipher 
them.  Yet  two  or  three  points  may  be  discussed. 

Among  the  reasons  urged  why  Massachusetts  should 
resort  to  methods  which  belong  to  “ military  necessity  ” 
rather  than  civil  administration,  is,  in  substance,  though 
not  in  form,  the  averment  of  the  existence  of  such  a 
necessity.  This  is  a convenient  plea,  often  just,  hut 
sometimes  abused,  even  in  war  ; never  justifiable  in 
peace  and  when  no  overwhelming  and  sudden  exigency 
of  convulsion,  fire,  flood,  or  pestilence  returns  society 
to  its  original  rights,  which  organized  government  may, 
on  those  supreme  occasions,  be  unable  to  vindicate 
under  the  forms  of  regular  procedure.  Among  the 
proofs  of  such  a necessity  to  transcend  the  sphere  of 
legislation,  break  down  the  precedents,  and  dis- 
regard the  principles  of  liberty,  (as  they  have 
been  understood  by  men  of  English  blood,  ever  since 
the  Devolution  of  1688,)  is  the  alleged  fact  of  a des- 
perate and  frightful  mass  of  insanity,  existing  in  this 
country  and  occasioned  by  drink. 

* Trait6  des  Degenerescences,  physiques,  intellectuelles' et  morales  de 
l’Espeee  Hutnaine,  par  le  Docteur  B.  A.  Morel.  Paris,  1857.  p.  132. 


105 


Doctor  Jarvis  is  an  especial  expert  in  the  cure  of 
insanity,  as  well  as  in  the  study  of  its  phenomena, 
and  its  literature.  On  one  of  his  sheets  is  a table 
“ of  patients  admitted  into  hospitals  for  the  insane, 
caused  by  intemperance.”  This  table  states  that,  of 
all  the  patients  received  into  all  the  hospitals  in  the 
United  States  down  to  1856,  the  causes  of  their  disease 
as  reported  are  known  in  14,935  cases.  The  cause  of 
the  insanity  of  1,536  is  reported  to  have  been  “ intem- 
perance.” That  number  is  the  aggregate  of  known 
alcoholic  insanity,  out  of  all  the  aggregate  population 
existing  during  a series  of  years  running  from  1833 
to  1856,  and  that  too,  making  no  allowance  for 
recommittals  of  the  same  persons,  who  must  in  some 
instances  be  enumerated  twice.  It  gives  a gross  ratio  of 
1,028  cases  of  “insanity  caused  by  intemperance,” 
out  of  each  10,000  reported  cases.  Now,  let  us  com- 
pare this  result  with  the  figures  given  on  the  same 
page,  showing  the  experience  of  the  different  hospitals 
and  different  sections  of  country  relatively  to  each 
other.  I do  this  for  the  purpose  of  learning  whether 
in  those  parts  of  the  country  where  prohibitory  legis- 
lation prevails,  any  apparent  diminution  of  this  kind 
of  insanity  has  arisen.  Also,  I do  it  to  learn  whether  in 
those  parts  where  liquors  are  plenty  and  cheap,  this 
insanity  is  proportionally  increased,  by  the  tables. 

14 


106. 


Also,  to  test  the  accuracy  of  the  reasoning  of  the  phy- 
sicians, the  friends  of  patients  and  others,  to  whom  we 
are  indebted  for  the  statements  in  the  individual  cases 
assigning  the  insanity  of  patients  to  this  cause.  I say 
the  “ reasoning”  because, Avhile  I do  not  deny  their 
truthfulness,  I am  not  so  sure  of  their  accuracy  in 
correctly  discriminating  between  apparent  causes  and 
real  ones,  between  causes  immediate  and  causes 
remote. 

Remember  that  the  grand  ratio  in  the  Union, 
by  these  statistics,  is  1,028  to  10,000 — a trifle  over 
one  in  ten.  But,  in  Ohio,  (whence  came  a witness 
for  the  remonstrants,  to  say  how  much  his  people 
longed  for  the  legislation  of  Maine  and  Massachu- 
setts, and  New  England  generally,  against  the  sale 
of  alcoholics,)  Dr.  Jarvis’s  table  shows  only  505  out 
of  10,000,  or  a trifle  less  than  one-half  the  average 
ratio  of  intemperate  insanity  in  the  country.  Com- 
pare the  State  of  Ohio  with  Massachusetts.  The 
returns  for  Boston,  Dr.  Jarvis’s  table  gives  as  show- 
ing 2,318  out  of  10,000,  or  more  than  twice  the 
average  ratio  of  the  Union;  Northampton  Hospital, 
2,168,  Taunton  Hospital,  2,379,  and  "Worcester 
Hospital  vibrating  at  different  periods  from  1,110,  up 
to  1,832.  Go  to  Philadelphia,  and  the  ratio  found  in 
the  wdiole  period  returned  is  1,183.  The  highest 


107 


ratio  there  was  from  the  years  1856  to  1866,  when  it 
was  at  the  rate  of  1,310  to  the  10,000.  The  average 
ratio  of  all  the  Pennsylvania  Hospitals  is  1,064  to 
the  10,000 ; while  Harrisburg  Hospital  presents  a 
ratio  of  only  547  to  the  10,000. 

This  table  then  proves,  if  it  proves  anything  at  all, 
that  “ insanity  from  intemperance,”  as  it  is  returned, 
prevails  more  in  the  very  head-quarters  of  prohibitory 
legislation  and  principles,  than  it  does  in  the  whiskey 
region  of  the  West  and  the  North-West,  where,  before 
the  war-tax,  whiskey  could  have  been  bought  at  the 
distilleries  for  a quarter  of  a dollar  the  gallon,  and 
where  also  the  manufacture  of  wine  from  the  native 
grape  has  grown  to  be  an  important  business  of  the 
people,  and  “ prohibition  ” is  known  only  by  name. 

I will  admit,  however,  that  'prohibition , as  such,  may 
be  excluded  from  the  argument.  It  has  really 
existed  in  New  England,  only  in  name.  And,  it  is 
fair  to  give  the  remonstrants  the  benefit  of  the  fact  in 
the  argument.  But  it  is  true,  that  a large  degree  of 
abstinence , even  to  totality,  has  existed  in  New  England, 
in  fact , ever  since  these  hospital  records  began  to  be 
made.  How  shall  we  account  then  for  the  fact,  which 
the  remonstrants  have  themselves  thus  proved,  that 
Massachusetts,  admitted  to  be  so  far  ahead  of  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Ohio,  in  technical  or  ritual  temperance, 


108 


suffers  from  twice  to  four  times  as  much,  from 
insanity  caused  by  intemperance,  as  they  do  \ I sup- 
pose the  truth  to  be,  that  the  real  or  primary  cause  of 
much  of  the  insanity  of  men  falling  into  intemperate 
habits,  and  reported  as  made  crazy  by  those  habits,  could 
be  traced  to  anterior  causes.  These,  distracting,  break- 
ing down,  weakening  and  disheartening  the  man,  in 
mind  and  body,  left  him  to  topple  over  into  drunk- 
enness, in  which  condition  he  first  disclosed  occasion 
for  anxiety  to  his  friends,  and  from  which,  by  the 
rapid  development  of  the  undiscerned,  though  earlier, 
malady,  he  descended  rapidly  into  some  form  of  posi- 
tive, visible  insanity,  of  which  drunkenness,  as  the  last 
antecedent,  became  the  apparent  cause.  On  this 
point  I might  content  myself  with  merely  citing  the 
testimony  of  Dr.  Morel  himself  in  his  very  treatise  * 
which  was  quoted  by  Dr.  Jarvis  on  other  points.  By 
means  of  drinking,  it  became  known,  for  the  first 
time,  that  the  patient  was  crazy  at  all.  And,  this 


* Traite  des  Degen6rescences,  etc.,  by  Dr.  Morel,  page  133,  note;  where 
the  learned  author  says  : “Les  debuts  de  l’alienateon  mentale  ofl'rent  une 
telle  complexity,  qu’il  est  bien  difficile  aux  parents  de  se  fixer  sur  l'influence 
principale  sous  laquelle  se  developpe  le  mal.  11  arrive  bien  souvent  que 
telle  cause  qu’ils  regardent  comme  efficiente,  n’est  souvent  qu’un  effet 
secondaire.” 

“ The  beginnings  of  mental  alienation  present  such  complexity  that  it  is 
extremely  difficult  even  for  relatives  of  the  patient  to  make  sure  of  the 
principal  influence  under  which  the  malady  develops.  It  often  occurs 
that  what  they  regard  as  the  efficient  cause,  is  in  reality  only  a secondary 
effect.” 


109 


was  the  true  history  of  the  tragic  case  of  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  men,  by  nature,  I have  ever  known. 
But  how  does  this  theory  account  for  the 
phenomenon  of  apparently  drunken  insanity  here, 
in  excess  of  such  insanity  there  ? My  answer  is, 
that  from  the  causes  I have  already  indicated,  there 
is  more  insanity,  in  the  aggregate,  among  our  people, 
in  proportion  to  numbers,  than  there  is  in  the 
other  sections.  And  the  mistake  being  often  made, 
of  supposing  drink  to  be  its  cause,  where,  in  a large 
class  of  cases,  it  is  rather  the  antecedent  than  the 
cause,  we  are,  therefore,  reported  to  have  twice  as 
much  mental  disease  created  by  drink,  when  in 
fact  we  consume  very  much  less  drink  to  create  it. 

Let  me  give  a further  proof.  The  whole  number  of 
deaths  recorded  as  caused  by  “ Insanity,”  occurring  in 
the  years  1859,  ?60,  found  in  the  volume  on  “ Mor- 
tality” prepared  by  Dr.  Jarvis  himself,  and  printed  by 
order  of  Congress,  was  452  in  all  the  States.  There 
were  other  insane  persons  who  died,  but  whose 
deaths  were  immediately  caused  by  other  diseases 
superinduced.  But  of  those  who  died  from  insan- 
ity, the  proportion  was  twice  as  great  in  the  north- 
eastern as  in  the  north-western  districts,  twice  as 
great  as  in  the  south-west,  more  than  twice  as 
great  as  in  the  south-east,  and  more  than  twice  as 


110 


great  as  in  the  tier  of  States  comprising  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa  and  Kansas,  and  a great  deal 
larger  than  in  other  districts,  except  in  California. 
It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  insanity  is  a disease, 
which,  in  its  various  manifestations,  appears  in  larger 
ratio,  and  is  fatal  to  more  people,  in  the  north-east, 
than  in  most  other  portions  of  the  country.  The 
excess  in  California  is  truly  ascribed  by  Dr.  Jarvis, 
(on  page  243  of  the  Census  Volume  of  “ Mor- 
tality,”) to  “ the  excitement  and  oppressive  anxieties, 
and  the  great  and  sudden  changes  of  fortune 
among  many  of  the  people.”  Applying  the  same 
rule  to  the  north-east,  we  find  the  cause  of  our  greater 
ratio  of  insanity,  in  the  commercial  fortuities,  the 
speculative  adventures,  the  hurrying,  crowded, 
excited,  anxious  habits  of  manufacturing  and  com- 
mercial cities,  the  excessive  nervous  exposure  of 
artists,  poets,  lawyers,  and  all  persons  of  overtasked 
brains,  distinguishing  our  civilization.  Insanity, 
indeed,  is  peculiarly  “ a feature  of  developing  civiliza- 
tion.”* It  is  thus  described  by  our  own  Board  of  State 
Charities,  and  with  learned  emphasis.  Besides,  the  bad 
sanitary  condition  of  narrow  lanes  and  alleys,  where 
certain  classes  abide  and  die  before  then'  time,  among 

* Second  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  State  Charities, 
p.  ciii.  (Mass.  Pub.  Doc.  1865,  No.  19.) 


Ill 


the  denser  populations,  piles  up  another  agony  in  the 
accumulation  of  human  woe,  of  which  madness  is  one 
of  the  mysterious  signs.  Thus  our  sum  total  of  insanity 
is  relatively  greater  than  for  example,  that  of  the  West. 
But  this  excess  of  our  own  insanity  compared  with  pop- 
ulation, furnishes  no  reason  why  the  peculiar  form  of 
madness  incident  to  drunkenness  should  be  still  fur- 
ther increased  and  be  twice  as  common  in  proportion 
to  our  whole  volume  of  insanity.  But,  if  this 
appearance  is  not  merely  superficial ; if  it  is  real ; and 
if  in  Massachusetts,  in  fact,  more  than  twice  as  many 
people  go  mad  from  drink  as  in  other  places  known 
to  be  less  abstinent,  I leave  the  unexplained  phe- 
nomenon to  be  disposed  of  by  others.  I believe  the 
explanation  to  be,  (and  these  statistics  concur  in 
proving  it,)  that  drunkenness  is  oftentimes  a man- 
ifestation of  independently  existing  mania,  mistaken, 
by  superficial  observation,  for  the  cause. 

These  leaves  of  Dr.  Jarvis  have  still  further  value. 
They  confirm,  by  the  weight  of  his  opinion,  the  tables 
of  mortality  in  the  Census.  It  had  been  contended  on 
behalf  of  the  remonstrants,  that  such  returns  could 
deserve  little  trust ; that  the  deaths  from  “ delirium 
tremens ,”  and  from  “ intemperance,”  and  from  “ insan- . 
ity,”  as  returned  and  tabulated,  could  not  be  true. 
But  Dr.  Jarvis  himself  exhibits  now  just  such  tables, 


112 


which  can  be  drawn  only  from  such  sources.  It  had 
been  gravely  urged  by  one  of  the  strongest  and  most 
intelligent  of  their  witnesses,  that  the  mortality  from 
intemperance  was  fifty  thousand  a year  in  the  United 
States ! And,  when  I called  attention  to  the  proof, 
that  the  deaths  from  “ delirium  tremens ” were  in  1860 
but  575,  that  those  from  “intemperance”  were 
returned  as  931  in  all,  that  the  mortality  from 
“ diseases  of  the  brain  ” (regarded  by  their  own 
physiological  authorities  as  the  great  seat  of  the 
diseases  generated  by  alcohol,)  was  returned  at  only 
5,726  in  the  aggregate,  and  when  I vainly  begged  to 
know  how  the  estimate  of  the  witness  was  made,  my 
facts  and  figures  were  received  with  incredulity.  Now 
the  whole  sum  of  mortality  in  the  whole  country,  from 
all  causes,  was  less  than  374,000  in  1860,  of  which 
number  by  the  theory  of  the  witness  in  question,  about 
one  in  seven  was  due  to  drink.  But,  one  of  the  leaves 
presented  by  Dr.  Jarvis,  on  the  stand,  shows  that, 
even  in  Boston,  (bad  as  she  is  represented  by  the  pro- 
hibitionists,) in  the  dark  decade  from  the  year  1820  to 
1830,  the  mortality  was  but  309  from  intemperance, 
to  10,000  of  all  known  causes,  or  about  three  deaths 
from  intemperance,  out  of  100  from  all  causes.  And 
it  also  exhibits  a descent,  during  the  last  five  and 
forty  years,  from  even  that  ratio,  until  during  the  fifteen 


113 


years  ending  with  the  year  1865,  there  was  a ratio  of 
85.9  to  the  10,000,  or  less  than  one  to  one  hundred. 
And  this  is  Boston,  bearing' as  she  must,  not  only  the 
sins  of  her  own  people,  but  of  strangers,  of  a large 
mass  of  entirely  exceptional  persons,  dying  under 
exceptional  circumstances,  and  not  representing  at  all 
the  average  health  or  the  general  sobriety. 

In  Lowell.  Dr.  Jarvis’s  tables  show  that  in  the  decade 
ending  with  1851,  the  mortality  from  intemperance 
was  but  56.9  to  the  10,000  deaths,  or  little  more  than 
half  of  one  to  an  hundred ; and  that,  as  in  Boston, 
so  there  also,  ivithout  enforcing  prohibition,  but  by  the 
moral  self-restraint  of  the  people,  that  species  of 
mortality  has  still  further  diminished  and  has  for 
the  past  fifteen  years,  been  at  less  than  half  the 
former  ratio,  or  about  one-quarter  of  one  death 
from  intemperance  to  one  hundred  deaths  from 
all  causes.  The  same  tables  show,  that  taking 
all  the  counties  but  Suffolk,  out  of  81,473  deaths 
from  all  known  causes,  during  the  years  1861 
to  1864,  there  were  298  from  intemperance,  or  the 
ratio  of  36.5  to  the  10,000,  less  than  four-tenths  of 
one  to  the  hundred  deaths.  And  the  seven  counties 
of  Barnstable,  Berkshire,  Franklin,  Hampshire,  Hamp- 
den, Dukes  and  Nantucket,  from  an  aggregate  of 
113  deaths  from  intemperance,  in  the  decade  of  1841 

15 


114 


to  1850,  out  of  24,684  from  all  known  causes,  fell 
down,  in  the  next  decade,  to  123  deaths  from  intem- 
perance, out  of  39,991  from  all  causes.  The  former 
decade  gave  45.8  to  the  10,000,  and  the  latter  but 
30.7  to  the  10,000. 

And  all  this  proof  of  the  conquering  power  of  ideas, 
of  reason  and  moral  sentiment,  to  reform  abuses , has 
accumulated  during  a time  when  the  use  is  more 
general,  and  when  the  cause  of  true  temperance  is 
demoralized  by  a law  on  the  statute  book,  constantly 
defied. 

Accidents  in  1860,  from  the  discharge  of  fire-arms 
alone,  destroyed  741  lives  ; railway  accidents,  599  ; 
accidental  poison,  950 ; while  the  aggregate  of  acci- 
dental causes  was  fatal  to  18,090  persons,  an  army 
corps  in  number.  Even  “ old  age  ” which  is  intended 
to  include  only  those  who  die  from  exhaustion  of  vital 
force  from  protracted  use  of  life,  without  any  disease 
or  organic  lesion — attended  4,899  men  and  5,988 
women,  or  10,887  in  all,  to  the  last  repose  of  our 
poor  humanity. 

Figures  may  be  thought  to  be  apparently  in  favor 
of  the  health  and  sobriety  of  the  country  populations 
as  against  the  city.  But  it  should  be  observed  that 
the  progress  of  sobriety  has  been  as  great  in  the  city 


115 


as  in  the  country,  notwithstanding  the  exceptional 
disadvantages  of  crowded  quarters  and  floating  classes. 

I must  afford  time  for  one  proof  that  the  great  body 
of  young  and  middleraged  men  in  Boston,  in  spite  of 
all  the  supposed  temptations  of  the  metropolis,  are  not 
behind  their  rural  neighbors  in  the  physical  qualities 
of  manhood.  Of  the  '29,194  men  drafted  by  the 
United  States  in  the  summer  of  1863,  and  of  the 
9,830  who  volunteered  under  the  stimulus  of  high 
bounties  and  the  short  term  of  service,  during  the  last 
eight  months  of  the  war,  being  39,024  in  all,  there 
were  rejected  by  the  surgeons,  14,827.  These  two 
bodies  are  fairly  representative — the  first  because  raised 
on  an  equal  draft,  the  second  because  stimulated  by 
the  same  enthusiasms,  and  by  State  and  town  boun- 
ties, both  large  and  similar.  (No  calculation  covering 
the  aggregate  volume  of  physical  examinations  and 
the  results,  in  this  Commonwealth,  during  the  whole 
war,  is  accessible.) 

The  number  of  these  men,  drafted  or  recruited  and 
examined,  in  the  two  representative  districts  to  which 
Boston  belongs,  (viz. : the  third  and  fourth,)  was 
12,741,  and  the  number  in  the  other  eight  districts 
was  26,283.  Of  those  examined  in  the  two  Boston 
districts,  the  number  rejected  by  the  surgeons  was 
3,946,  or  310  to  each  thousand  examined;  while,  of 


116 


those  examined  in  the  other  eight  districts,  the  rejec- 
tions were  10,881,  or  414  to  each  thousand, — thus 
exhibiting  about  three-fourths  as  many  rejections  to 
the  thousand  in  the  Boston  districts  as  are  found  in 
the  residue  of  the  Commonwealth. 

Mr.  Chairman : The  proof  is  clear  that  neither 
mortality  nor  insanity,  nor  any  of  the  fatal  exhibitions 
of  intemperance,  bad  as  they  are,  afford  any  ground 
for  panic,  or  “ military  necessity  in  legislation.”  But 
one  of  the  advocates  before  this  Committee,  and  many 
of  the  witnesses,  have  declared  they  meant  “ to  put  it 
through ,”  to  “ overcome  obstacles,”  to  “ remember 
that  Massachusetts  can  do  whatever  she  undertakes.” 
Another  advocate,  perhaps  the  most  eloquent  of 
them  all,  and  not  the  least  imprudent,  has  declared 
in  public,  that  they  intend  “ to  exhaust  the  inge- 
nuity of  the  Yankee  mind  ” in  devising  measures 
to  compel  the  due  subordination  of  their  opponents. 

But,  if  gentlemen  believe  that  a standing  menace,  a 
perpetual  sneer,  the  denial  of  sincerity  or  conscien- 
tiousness, the  positive  accusation  of  being  moved  by 
appetite,  or  by  gain,  the  habitual  affectation  of  supe- 
riority, both  of  rights  and  of  character  (with  which 
these  petitioners,  their  advocates  and  witnesses  have 
been  met  and  opposed  by  persons  on  the  stand  and  off 
of  it,  by  public  speech,  and  through  the  “ prohibi- 


117 


tory  ” press)  will  ultimately  avail,  when  the  results 
of  this  hearing  shall  have  been  spread  before  •“  the 
Yankee  mind  ” — they  have  misconceived  its  intelli- 
gence, and  its  fairness,  the  spirit  of  liberty,  refinement 
and  progress. 

Whenever  you  begin  this  work  of  enforced  con- 
formity, there  are  perils  in  your  way  little  imagined. 
It  is  of  no  use  to  beg  the  question,  by  the  short 
method  of  stigmatizing  opponents  as  criminals,  or  as 
upholders  of  criminality.  There  is  now  proved  to 
be — what  certain  gentlemen  affected  to  doubt  before — 
a powerful,  convinced,  intellectual,  revered  and  noble 
body  of  people,  numerically  strong,  and  not  sur- 
passed by  any,  in  aught  that  yields  weight,  dignity 
and  influence,  denying  the  dogmas  of  the  prohibi- 
tionists, challenging  the  philosophy  of  their  move- 
ment, the  fitness  of  their  methods,  their  consistency 
with  liberty,  with  progress,  and  with  the  ultimate 
good.  A denunciatory  harangue,  impugning  the 
character  of  a private  citizen,  or  the  motives  of  a 
sworn  and  responsible  magistrate,  will  not  longer  avail 
against  this  array.  If,  against  the  judgment  of  the 
best  men  you  insist  on  this  coercion,  and  trample  on 
convictions  as  well  as  rights,  let  me  remind  you  that 
the  same  argument  of  necessity  may  be  used  to  strike 
Avhere  now  you  little  dream.  Stay  a moment.  Take 


% 


118 


this  very  illustration  of  insanity  again.  The  census 
report*  gives  a table  prepared  by  Dr.  Butler,  of  the 
“ Hartford  Retreat,”  exhibiting  the  whole  number  of 
cases  in  four  leading  hospitals,  in  which  the  causes 
of  insanity  have  been  noted.  There  were  7,591  cases, 
in  all.  Of  these,  2,253  were  found  due  to  “ ill 
health,”  and  812  to  “ intemperance.”  Thus  there 
was  found  nearly  three  times  as  much  statistical 
proof  of  a necessity  to  take  under  guardianship  the 
whole  course  of  domestic  life  and  personal  habit, 
physical  and  moral,  for  the  protection  of  the  com- 
munity. against  suffering  from  the  madness  of  sick 
people,  as  against  that  of  the  other  class.  Nor  is 
that  all.  If  “ intemperance  ” caused  the  madness  of 
812,  so  “ religious  excitement  ” came  next  in  the  order, 
and  crazed  740  more.  What  will  you  do  with  these  1 
You  admit  that  you  have  no  right  to  restrain  or  appoint 
the  use  of  stimulants  by  the  citizen.  He  may  use 
them  in  his  diet,  as  well  as  for  his  medicine,  if  he 
can.  But,  you  will  prevent  his  getting  them,  by  for- 
bidding any  one  to  sell  them,  unless  as  a public 
agent.  And  you  will  direct  the  public  agent  to  make 
inquisition  of  the  use  intended,  and  to  refuse  them 
if  wanted  for  a dietetic  purpose.  Thus,  by  indirection, 

* See  “ Introduction,”  to  Volume  on  “Population,”  of  the  Census 
Report,  of  1860,  p.  lxxxix. 


* 


119 


— not  deemed  honorable  as  between  gentlemen,  not 
deemed  fair  dealing  as  between  merchants,  not  per- 
mitted by  the  Gospel,  which  enjoins  that  your  “ yea  ” 
shall  mean  yea , and  your  “ nay  ” shall  mean  nay, — 
your  law  aims  to  do,  and  its  supporters  make  a 
■virtue  of  trying  to  do,  what  it  purports  to  omit,  what 
it  pretends  to  avoid.  It,  in  fact,  undertakes  to  get 
into  the  household,  control  the  domestic  economy 
and  the  diet  of  the  citizen,  by  a sumptuary  law 
artfully  worded.  The  supreme  court  may  not  be  able 
to  reach  and  overrule  it.  But,  there  is  “ a higher 
law,”  by  which  it  is  inevitably  rejudged. 

If  the  legislature  can  do  thus,  then  why  not  also  lay 
hands  on  the  promoters  of  “religious  excitement'?” 
Do  you  reply  that  people  have  the  right  to  think 
according  to  conscience,  on  religion?  True;  and  so 
you  say  they  have  a right  to  select  their  own  diet. 
Suppose  you  compare  the  number  of  people  made 
crazy  by  “ religious  excitement  ” with  the  number  of 
sinners  returned  as  converted,  and  on  comparing  them 
you  find  the  ratio  of  that  insanity  greater  than  the 
ratio,  alcoholic  insanity  bears  to  the  aggregate  of  tem- 
perate drinkers,  what  is  to  hinder  the  application  of 
your  argument  from  “ military  necessity?”  Why  not 
admit  the  right  to  think,  but  deny  to  some  classes  the 
dangerous  right  to  preach  ? Does  the  constitution 


120 


hinder  'l  Then  why  not  try  “ the  ingenuity  of  the 
Yankee  mind,”  by  agitating  to  amend  the  constitution, 
to  rid  us  of  such  an  evil  \ Some  of  the  denominations 
might  not  object,  if  they  are  not  wedded  to  the  idea  of 
liberty.  It  might  be  found  that  the  confessional,  the 
absolution,  and  the  sacraments  of  salvation,  offered  by 
the  Church  of  Rome,  give  such  peace  of  mind  that 
its  ministers  prevent  insanity  and  create  none.  It 
might  be  urged  that  the  denominations  styled  “ Lib- 
eral” neither  alarm  nor  console,  and  therefore,  if 
they  do  no  good,  do  no  harm.  It  might  be  set  up 
that  Calvinism  distracts  the  understanding,  scares  the 
imagination,  and  leaves  an  awful  doubt  forever  hang- 
ing over  the  tremendous  problem  of  election  and 
reprobation  ; that  Arminianism  is  exciting,  noisy,  and 
guilty  of  placing  an  overwhelming  responsibility  on 
the  sinner’s  mind,  since  it  leaves  everlasting  issues 
to  depend  on  his  working  out  his  own  salvation. 
Romanism,  then,  together  with  the  “ Liberals,"  might 
be  left  by  the  law  in  substantially  undisputed  posses- 
sion of  the  field — as  the  “ State  agency  ” appointed  to 
preach  down  insanity  and  lower  the  taxes  now  wrung 
from  our  pockets  to  support  740  people  a year  driven 
mad  by  religious  emotions  and  measures  which  they 
could  not  “ assimilate  ” nor  “ digest.” 


121 


But,  suppose,  for  the  moment,  that  our  part  of 
the  immense  trade  in  alcoholics, — of  which  ninety 
million  gallons  were  manufactured  in  this  country  in 
1860, — could  be  taken  by  legislative  machinery  out 
of  commerce  and  put  into  politics , so  that  the  gover- 
nor, or  his  agent,  the  liquor  commissioner,  should  be 
the  only  lawful  wholesale  dealer,  besides  the  import- 
ers selling  only  their  original  packages,  which  could 
never  be  broken  for  sale,  nor  sold  again,  unless  by 
the  commissioner.  And,  for  all  the  myriad  uses  of 
our  diversified  industry  into  which  alcohol  enters,  (as 
it  does  enter  in  almost  every  conceivable  way  through 
manufactures  and  the  arts,  being  found  at  last  in  solid, 
as  well  as  fluid  forms,  in  our  lights,  in  the  gases,  and 
in  most  medicines,  at  some  stage  or  other  of  their 
preparation,)  suppose  for  the  moment  that  only  the 
local  agents  of  the  government  should  actually  sell  it  ♦ 
by  retail  at  all.  Remember,  that  there  is  an  actual 
demand  in  the  whole  country,  by  the  public  taste,  good 
and  bad,  for  at  least  forty  million  gallons  to  drink. 
Alongside  of  this  demand,  in  ordinary  times,  there  is, 
with  our  present  population  and  under  wise  taxation, 
a demand  for  some  fifty  million  gallons  more  for  other 
uses  agreed  to  be  legitimate.  'When  politics  have 
got  the  monopoly  of  the  latter  business,  they  will 

not  wait  long  before  grasping  at  the  former.  The 
16 


122 


business,  (for  ends  acknowledged  legitimate,)  will 
then  have  swollen  in  the  hands  of  the  commissioner 
and  his  friends, — who  manufacture  and  import  for 
him,  who  sell  or  consign  to  him,  to  whom  he  is 
indebted,  or  under  obligations, — to  the  proportions 
of  a vast  overshadowing  monopoly,  of  which  the 
profits  would  belong  to  a few,  represented  in  every 
hamlet,  on  every  hillside  and  river  bank  of  Massa- 
chusetts, by  an  army  of  local  agents  in  correspond- 
ence and  in  fatal  relations  with  the  “head  centre” 
of  the  monopoly  at  Boston,  who  would  “ pull  the 
wires”  felt  in  every  town  and  district  caucus,  and 
would  “ log-roll  ” with  every  similar  enterprise  aimed 
at  the  subversion  of  local  and  personal  independence.  ' 
Strong  in  the  power  of  such  a gigantic  “ machine  ” 
invented  in  a spasm  of  “ Yankee  ingenuity,”  impu- 
dent with  ill-gotten  wealth,  and  bloated  by  greedy 
ambition, — like  the  two  daughters  of  the  horse-leech, 
(in  the  Proverbs)  they  will  perpetually  cry  “give! 
give  ! ” Do  you  believe  in  the  virtuous  self-denial  of 
such  an  unnatural  alliance  between  trade  and  politics, 
consummated  in  defiance  of  the  principles  of  political 
economy,  maintained  by  subverting  ancient  safeguards 
of  liberty ; created  by  a statute  which — professed  to  be 
made  in  the  interest  of  a high  moral  testimony  against 
the  sale  of  even  wines  not  less  than  spirits  distilled — 


123 


allows  the  manufacture  of  New  England  Rum  bg  the 
wholesale , to  be  sent  abroad  to  all  the  earth,  and 
among  our  missionaries  to  the  heathen,  without  hin- 
drance or  rebuke?  I warn  honest  gentlemen,  who 
desire  that  the  traffic  in  these  dangerous  and  seductive, 
yet  needful  and  indispensable  liquids,  shall  be  kept 
within  the  reach  of  regulation,  wherever  order  and 
decorum  demand  the  intervention  of  government,  and 
the  government  can  rightly  intervene, — I warn  them 
that  your  machinery  may  be  found,  at  last,  more  pow- 
erful than  the  inventors.  You  may  yet  find,  that  after 
political  corruption  shall  have  subsidized  the  party 
leaders,  and  demoralized  the  party,  dedicated  by  its 
name,  and  consecrated  by  its  life  to  Republican  liberty, 
it  will  reveal  itself  in  all  the  hideous  proportions  of 
the  Devil,  though  now  wearing  a shining  robe.  I fore- 
warn you  of  the  day  surely  coming,  unless  you  recede, 
when  the  monopoly  you  are  striving  to  create,  greedy 
for  more  gain  and  more  power,  anxious  to  increase 
and  not  to  diminish  its  sales,  will  “ run  the  machine  ” 
in  the  interest  of  unlimited  consumption  by  our  own 
people,  as  w7ell  as  by  the  heathen.  When  that  day 
comes,  it  will  be  found  that  your  machinery,  the 
motive  power  of  which  will  be  a stream  of  Rum, 
swollen  by  all  the  affluents  of  commerce,  will  have 
a wheel  large  enough  for  the  stream,  and  that  the 


124 


whole  stream  will  be  turned  on  the  wheel.  I pray 
you  to  avoid  trying  the  fatal  experiment  to  see 
whether  in  that  day,  and  until  a new  revolution  shall 
break  the  chain  you  now  are  forging,  Massachusetts 
will  own  the  Trade  in  Hum,  or  the  Monopolists  of  the 
Trade  will  own  Massachusetts,  selling  what  they 
please,  as  they  please,  to  whom  they  please,  limiting 
their  business  only  by  the  fatality  of  their  beverages. 
The  only  safety  of  “ the  machine”  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  it  never  will  be  made  to  work. 

We  propose,  Mr.  Chairman,  a scheme  which  will 
liberate  the  Commonwealth,  and  give  scope  to  the 
religious  and  virtuous  encouragement,  whether  of 
Temperance  or  of  Abstinence.  Enact  a law  leaving 
the  wholesale  liquor  trade  with  commerce,  where  it 
belongs.  Provide  for  assay  and  inspection,  to  protect 
the  people  from  imposition.  If  you  can  allow  men 
to  distil  liquors  for  wholesale,  for  the  uses  of  arts  and 
manufactures,  as  now  you  do,  there  is  no  pretext  for 
interference  with  the  product  of  importation.  Permit 
the  municipalities  to  license  taverners  to  furnish 
to  their  guests,  in  their  rooms,  or  on  their 
tables  with  their  meals,  whatever  beverages,  as 
well  as  whatever  meat,  they  demand  and  the 
markets  afford,  according  to  the  customs  of  social 
and  domestic  life.  Allow*  them  also  to  license  vie- 


125 


tuallers  to  sell  fermented  beverages,  in  like  manner, 
with  the  meals  of  their  guests,  and  allow  grocers  to 
retail  in  packages  conveniently  small  for  domestic 
or  culinary  use  and  for  employment  in  manufactures 
and  the  arts  ; and,  in  the  name  of  ordinary  fairness 
and  common  reason,  grant  the  petition  of  the  College 
of  Pharmacy. 

Having  adopted  a scheme  which  looks  to  the  dis- 
continuance of  public  tippling  places,  or  saloons, 
or  bars,  of  all  kinds,  surround  the  licensees  by 
such  police  regulations  as  may  be,  to  restrain  that 
abuse.  Your  regulation  of  the  retail  trade  will  then 
securely  repose  on  the  clear  social  right  to  maintain 
order  and  public  decorum,  endangered  by  bar-rooms 
and  tippling  shops,  where  dangerous  and  seductive 
beverages  are  offered  neither  as  medicine,  nor  as  diet, 
to  the  chance  crowds  of  the  hour,  tempted  by  each 
other  to  drink  without  appetite,  to  linger  without 
motive,  and  to  revel  without  enjoyment, 

“ Where  laughter  is  not  mirth,  nor  thought  the  mind, 

Nor  words  a language,  nor  even  men  mankind.” 

If  you  fear  that  local  influences  may  indulge  indi- 
viduals at  the  risk  of  the  public,  then  give  to  the 
judges  of  the  Court  of  Probate  and  of  the  Superior 
Court,  sitting  in  Chambers,  jurisdiction  on  summary 


126 


hearing,  upon  sworn  complaint  of  any  selectman  or 
alderman,  or  of  the  Constable  of  the  Commonwealth, 
to  annul  any  license  which  the  municipal  authorities 
refuse  to  annul,  on  proof  to  the  judge’s  satisfaction 
that  its  holder  has  broken  the  law  or  the  conditions 
of  his  license. 

Do  this  fairly,  with  no  effort  to  reduce  the  people 
to  inconvenient  straits  in  the  pursuit  of  what  in  their 
own  judgment  they  need. 

Under  the  forms  of  republican  legislation,  do  not, 
in  the  short-sighted  service  of  morality  without  Faith, 
seek  to  play  either  the  tyrant  or  the  pedagogue. 

In  the  words  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  whose  austere 
virtue  and  greatness  made  him  for  years  the  represent- 
ative statesman  of  New  England,  uttered  in  address- 
ing the  Temperance  Society  of  Norfolk  County,  five 
and  twenty  years  ago  : — 

“ Forget  not  [/ pray  you ] the  rights  of  personal  freedom. 
* * * Self-government  is  the  foundation  of  all  our  polit- 

ical and  social  institutions,  and  it  is  by  self-government  alone 
that  the  law  of  temperance  can  be  enforced.  * * * Seek 
not  to  enforce  upon  [your  brother,]  by  legislative  enact- 
ment, that  virtue  which  he  can  possess  only  by  the  dictate 
of  his  own  conscience  and  the  energy  of  his  own  will.” 

Abiding  by  such  principles,  you  will  put  an  end  to 
the  antagonism  between  the  government,  and  the  peo- 


127 


pie  who  consume.  You  will  have  preserved  your  own 
dignity,  undertaken  your  own  duties,  and  recognized 
their  rights.  With  all  the  methods  and  forces  of  the 
present  laws,  and  of  the  existing  decisions,  at  your 
command  for  the  punishment  of  those  who  sell  with- 
out license,  or  in  breach  of  one,  you  will  stand  in 
a position  a hundred-fold  stronger  than  you  do 
to-day,  or  than  you  ever  stood  before.  Recognizing 
the  retail  trade  in  liquors  as  having  an  exceptional 
side,  and  therefore  requiring  a certain  police  super- 
vision which  every  town  may  not  desire  to  undertake, 
we  do  not  ask  it  to  be  forced  upon  any  town  against 
its  will.  While  the  means  of  purchase  for  certain 
uses  are  furnished  through  the  agency,  and  while 
the  competition  of  other  towns  exists,  and  the  power 
to  institute  the  same  competition  exists  there  also, 
a given  town  may  prefer  to  exclude  it.  The  fatal 
monopoly  I have  described  will  then  be  impossible ; 
and  the  right  of  the  citizen  will  be  preserved  to  buy 
somewhere  in  the  Commonwealth  those  things  he 
needs,  in  his  own  judgment,  for  his  family  and  for 
himself. 

It  is  puerile  to  inveigh  against  this  plan,  as  making 
the  “ criminal  laws  of  the  Commonwealth  ” subject 
to  municipal  interference.  That  is  substituting  an 
adjective  for  an  argument.  These  laws  are  only 


128 


“ criminal  ” because  they  are  made  so,  or  called  so. 
They  are  properly  police  regulations  (often  essentially 
municipal,)  concerning  the  distribution  of  certain 
articles  of  merchandise,  universally  admitted  to  have 
their  proper  uses,  needful  to  be  bought  and  sold,  but 
liable  to  abuse.  One  breaking  those  regulations  is 
liable  to  indictment  or  complaint.  In  that  sense, 
they  are  criminal  laws.  But,  there  always  have 
been  other  laws,  the  violation  of  which  subjects 
one  to  criminal  procedure,  as  for  misdemeanor,  just 
as  these  do,  which  are  subordinated  to  municipal 
administration,  and  which  even  owe  their  very  being 
to  the  will  of  the  respective  cities  and  towns. 

But,  do  you  profess  that  these  prohibitory  laws 
were  enacted  in  the  exercise  of  your  best  discretion  ; 
and  that  in  your  judgment  the  case  for  a change  has 
not  been  made  out  1 I then  beg  to  meet  that  position 
by  the  counter  position  taken  by  some  of  the  ablest 
and  wisest  men  in  Massachusetts,  in  testimony  before 
this  Committee,  denying  the  right  of  government  thus  to 
pass  into  the  domestic  and  private  sphere. 

If  there  is  a man  born  to  speak  the  English  tongue, 
who  combines  high  integrity,  great  attainments,  prac- 
tical wisdom  and  theoretical  statesmanship,  with  faith 
in,  and  devotion  to,  free  government,  and  the  elevation 
of  the  humble,  that  man — one  of  the  truest  friends  of 


129 


America  in  the  Old  World — is  John  Stuart  Mill. 
And  thus  he  wrote  : — 

“ There  are  in  our  own  day,  gross  usurpations  upon  the 
liberty  of  private  life  actually  practised,  and  still  greater 
ones  threatened,  with  some  expectation  of  success  ; and 
opinions  proposed  which  assert  an  unlimited  right  in  the 
public  not  only  to  prohibit  by  law  everything  which  it  thinks 
wrong,  but  in  order  to  get  at  what  it  thinks  wrong,  to  pro- 
hibit any  number  of  things  which  it  admits  to  be  innocent. 

“ Under  the  name  of  preventing  intemperance,  the  people 
of  one  English  colony,  and  of  nearly  half  the  United  States, 
have  been  interdicted  by  law  from  making  any  use  whatever 
of  fermented  drinks,  except  for  medical  purposes ; for  pro- 
hibition of  their  sale  is  in  fact,  as  it  is  intended  to  be, 
prohibition  of  their  use.  * * * The  infringement  com- 

plained of  is  not  on  the  liberty  of  the  seller,  but  on  that  of 
the  buyer  and  consumer  ; since  the  State  might  just  as  well 
forbid  him  to  drink  wine,  as  purposely  make  it  impossible  for 
him  to  obtain  it.  The  secretary,  however,  [of  the  English 
“Alliance  ”]  says,  ‘ I claim,  as  a citizen,  a right  to  legislate 
whenever  my  social  rights  are  invaded  by  the  social  act  of 
another.’  And  now  for  the  definition  of  these  ‘ social 
rights.’  ‘ If  anything  invades  my  social  rights,  certainly 
the  traffic  in  strong  drink  does.  It  destroys  my  primary 
right  of  security,  by  constantly  creating  and  stimulating 
social  disorder.  It  invades  my  right  of  equality,  by  deriving 
a profit  from  the  creation  of  a misery  I am  taxed  to  support. 
It  impedes  my  right  to  free  moral  and  intellectual  develop- 
ment, by  surrounding  my  path  with  dangers,  and  by  weak- 
ening and  demoralizing  society,  from  which  I have  a right 

to  claim  mutual  aid  and  intercourse.’  A theory  of  ‘ social 
17 


130 


rights,’  the  like  of  which  probably  never  before  found  its 
way  into  distinct  language,  being  nothing  short  of  this,  that 
it  is  the  absolute  social  right  of  every  individual  that  every 
other  individual  shall  act  in  every  respect  exactly  as  he 
ought ; that  whosoever  fails  thereof  in  the  smallest  partic- 
ular, violates  my  social  right,  and  entitles  me  to  demand 
from  the  legislature  the  removal  of  the  grievance.  So 
monstrous  a principle  is  far  more  dangerous  than  any  single 
interference  with  liberty  ; there  is  no  violation  of  liberty 
which  it  would  not  justify  ; it  acknowledges  no  right  to  any 
freedom  whatever  except  perhaps  to  that  of  holding  opinions 
in  secret,  without  ever  disclosing  them.”* 

I appeal  also  to  William  von  Humboldt,  the  friend 
of  Schiller  and  of  Goethe,  a statesman,  a scholar,  an 
ambassador  of  Prussia,  a minister  of  State,  who  re-or- 
ganized public  instruction  and  gave  to  the  Prussian 
system  much  of  the  eminence  it  enjoys,  whose  forecast 
attempted  to  consolidate  Germany  against  the  first 
Napoleon,  as  Bismarck  has,  more  than  a half  century 
later,  consolidated  it  against  Napoleon  III.,  and  of 
whom  it  was  said  by  Talleyrand,  that  there  were  not 
three  men  in  Europe  of  his  ability : — 

“ The  State  may  content  itself  with  exercising  the  most 
watchful  vigilance  on  every  unlawful  project,  and  defeat- 
ing it  before  it  has  been  put  into  execution  : or,  advanc- 
ing further,  it  may  prohibit  actions  which  are  harmless  in 
themselves,  but  which  tempt  to  the  commission  of  crime,  or 


♦Mill  on  Liberty,  pp.  170-73. 


131 


afford  opportunities  for  resolving  upon  criminal  actions. 
This  latter  policy,  again,  tends  to  encroach  on  the  liberty  of 
the  citizens  ; manifests  a distrust  on  the  part  of  the  State 
which  not  only  operates  hurtfully  on  the  character  of  the 
citizens,  but  goes  to  defeat  the  very  end  in  view.  * * * All 
that  the  State  may  do,  without  frustrating  its  own  end,  and 
without  encroaching  on  the  freedom  of  its  citizens,  is,  there- 
fore, restricted  to  the  former  course ; that  is,  the  strictest 
surveillance  of  every  trangression  of  the  law,  either  already 
committed  or  only  resolved  on  ; and  as  this  cannot  properly 
be  called  preventing  the  causes  of  crime,  I think  I may  safely 
assert  that  this  prevention  of  criminal  actions  is  wholly 
foreign  to  the  State’s  proper  sphere  of  activity.* 

One  of  the  latest  and  best  expositions  of  the 
" Rationale  of  Government  and  Legislation  ” is 
found  in  a recent  volume  bearing  that  title,  by 
Lord  "Wrottesley,  in  which,  without  pretension  to 
novelty  of  reasoning,  (which  would,  perhaps,  be  a 
demerit,)  he  has  presented  the  results  arrived  at  by 
the  best  modern  writers  on  the  philosophy  of 
government. 

The  following  propositions  so  clearly  express 
the  conclusions  of  reason  and  experience,  that  I 
am  prepared  to  adopt  and  to  proclaim  them  as 
the  voice  of  authority. 

“ First.  Laws  should  never  be  passed  which  either  can- 
not be  executed,  or  of  which  the  execution  is  so  difficult 


Sphere  and  Duties  of  Government,  (W.  v.  Humboldt,)  p.  171. 


132 


that  the  temptation  to  neglect  their  observance  is  likely  to 
surmount  the  fear  of  the  punishment. 

“ Second.  Laws  should  never  be  passed  forbidding  acts 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  a large  proportion  of  the  educated 
members  of  the  community,  are  in  themselves  innocent. 

“ Third.  LawTs  should  not  generally  be  passed  which, 
though  good  in  themselves,  either  too  much  anticipate  public 
opinion,  or  are  hostile  to  the  deliberately-formed  sentiments 
of  a large  majority  of  the  population  of  any  country. 

“ Fourth.  No  attempt  should  be  made  to  reform  the  moral 
conduct  of  society  by  the  enactments  of  positive  law,  —that 
is,  to  make  men  good  and  virtuous  by  Act  of  Parliament.” 

The  venerable  and  reverend  Doctor  Leonard  With- 
ington,  in  the  dawn  of  this  attempt  at  enforced 
conformity,  sounded  the  note  of  remonstrance,  with 
prophetic  wisdom. 

“ I desire  to  bear  my  solemn  testimony,  and  to  say 
that  though  I have  seen  frequent  attempts,  I never  knew 
any  good  to  come  from  such  legislation.  I have  seen  men 
exasperated  by  it  but  never  reformed.  So  it  ever  has  been, 
and  so  it  ever  will  be,  until  nature  itself  is  changed.  I 
was  in  Connecticut  when  attempts  were  made  to  enforce 
the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  by  law.  I saw  hypocrisy, 
power,  passion,  haughtiness,  indignation,  force,  resistance, 
commands,  threats,  cursing ; but  I saw  no  promotion  of 
meekness  among  Christians  or  repentance  among  sinners. 
The  contest  was  long  and  the  fruits  were  bitter.  Long  did 
it  take  to  teach  the  sober  part  of  the  community  a simple 
truth.  What  the  law  could  not  do , in  that  it  was  iceak 
through  the  flesh , God,  sending  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness 


133 


of  sinful  flesh , and  for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh,  that 
the  righteousness  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us  icho  walk 
not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit.” 

“ If  any  person  can  devise  a plan  for  prohibitory  legis- 
lation on  the  sale  of  intoxicating  drinks,  not  involving 
the  greatest  inconsistency  even  in  the  very  scheme,  then  I 
will  acknowledge  he  has  done  what  surpasses  the  utmost 
flights  of  my  imagination.  This  very  plan  must  be  a square 
wheel  made  to  roll.  But  how  absurd  it  is  to  expect  success 
in  the  execution,  when  you  cannot  even  devise  consistency 
in  the  design ! You  launch  a vessel  full  of  holes  and 
expect  her  not  to  sink.” 

“ Remember  that  some  are  drunkards  because  they  are 
poor ; some  because  they  arc  idle ; some  because  they 
are  disappointed ; some  because  they  are  ignorant ; some 
from  an  unhappy  nervous  system  ; and  all  because  they 
are  not  Christians.  Reflect  that  there  are  indirect  as  well 
as  direct  efforts  to  oppose  this  evil ; and  that  sometimes 
the  indirect  efforts  are  the  most  effectual.  Is  a man  idle, 
endeavor  to  employ  him  ; is  he  ignorant,  instruct  him ; is  he 
disappointed,  point  him  to  the  true  source  of  consolation; 
and,  above  all  things,  beware  how  you  lord  it  over  his  faults, 
or  play  the  Pharisee  over  his  vices.  Recollect  that  intem- 
perance is  seldom  an  insulated  vice ; it  grows  up  in  wide 
combinations;  and  you  are  never  fitted  to  engage  in  the 
subject  of  reforming  it  until  you  have  sounded  the  depths 
from  which  it  springs.” 

It  is  urged  by  many  good  men  that  spirits  and  wines 
are  so  alluring,  that  health  and  morals  require  teetotal- 
ism  as  the  only  safeguard.  That  while  there  is  evi- 


* 

/ 


134 


dence,  by  which  many  men  otherwise  trustworthy  are 
convinced,  in  favor  of  a certain,  temperate,  dietetic  use 
by  some  people,  yet  the  moral  dangers  to  the  mass  are 
such  that  teetotalism  ought  not  only  to  be  univer- 
sally volunteered,  but  that  it  ought  to  receive  the  vin- 
dication of  the  Statute  book,  and  the  moral  support  of 
the  legislature. 

The  whole  argument  involves  one  of  the  oldest  of 
human  errors ; so  entirely  human  that  it  has  no 
shadow  of  countenance  from  the  religion  of  the  Xew 
Testament.  This  world,  in  which  while  in  the  body 
we  must  abide,  and  this  body  in  which  the  spirit 
dwells,  have  been  felt  by  many  philosophers  and  moral- 
ists, both  Christian  and  heathen,  to  work  a sad  impris- 
onment of  the  celestial  spirit.  The  immaculate  purity 
of  the  spirit,  soiled  by  any  indulgence  of  the  gross 
and  material  body,  recedes  from  all  human  passion, 
and  oftentimes  from  all  intercourse  with  this  tempting, 
dangerous,  material  world,  to  which  alone,  in  the 
temptation  of  a simple  fruit,  hanging  on  one  of  the 
trees  of  Eden,  is  due  our  whole  experience  of  woe 
and  the  awful  mystery  of  evil.  The  Church  has 
always  been  tolerant,  the  Church  of  Rome  has  some- 
times been  too  indulgent,  of  this  mysticism ; while 
some  of  the  Protestant  sects,  as  well  as  of  the  societies 
in  the  Roman  Church,  have  made  it  their  vital  princi- 


135 


pie.  Bat  it  had  its  original  expression  in  oriental  phi- 
losophy, not  in  Christianity,  nor  even  in  Judaism. 

When  our  Saviour  came  to  the  Jews,  He  found 
them  mainly  in  these  sects  or  divisions, — the  Phar- 
isees and  the  Sadducees.  The  latter,  relatively  small, 
maintained  the  laAV  as  written  by  Moses,  denying  the 
traditions  of  the  Elders.  They  were  rich,  educated 
and  influential,  but  cold,  hard  and  unspiritual.  The 
Pharisees  were  devoted  to  their  religion,  professed  to 
live  meanly,  to  despise  delicacies,  to  venerate  the 
Elders.  But  many  of  them,  with  ostentatious  prayers, 
sacrificed  the  heart  of  humanity  on  the  altar  of 
ceremonious  and  hollow  sanctity.  Besides  these,  were 
the  Essenes.  They  were  very  few,  and  were  sincere, 
but  narrow. 

Doubtless  recruited  from  the  sect  of  Pharisees 
they  held  rather  to  their  general  views,  which  had 
an  ascetic  tendency.  But,  in  a spirit  of  devout,  self- 
denying,  mystic  yearning  after  God,  they  sought 
him  in  the  ecstasies  of  contemplation,  through  exile, 
poverty  and  want;  instead  of  facing  the  world,  bear- 
ing its  social  burdens,  risking  its  evils,  temptations 
and  woes.  Although  there  were  many  observances 
pertaining  to  the  flesh,  ritually  imposed  upon  the  Jew, 
including  many  dietetic  limitations,  there  was  in  the 
law  of  Moses  no  prohibition  against  drinking  wine — 


136 


which  was  the  intoxicating  beverage  of  Palestine— 
save  only  the  command  to  Aaron,  and  his  posterity, 
(the  priesthood,)*  not  to  drink  wine  nor  strong  drink 
when  going  before  the  congregation,  lest  they  might 
by  accident  put  the  clean  for  the  unclean  in  the  holy 
sacrifice  of  the  tabernacle.  There  were  stringent  laws 
to  maintain  the  purity  of  woman,  and  of  the  family 
descent.  But,  there  was  no  suggestion  in  the  law  of 
Moses  of  a peculiar  sanctity  in  a celibate  life.  The 
Jew  was  educated  to  believe  marriage  honorable,  and 
a fruitful  posterity  a pride  and  blessing.  But,  there 
were  occasionally  men  and  women  who  assumed 
the  vow  of  a Nazarite,  (which  word  implies  sep- 
aration,)  “ to  separate  themselves  unto  the  Lord, 
* * * from  wine  and  strong  drink,”  to  eat 

nothing  “ made  of  the  vine  tree,  from  the  kernel 
even  to  the  husk ; ” not  to  permit  the  hair  nor 
the  beard  to  be  shorn,  to  touch  no  dead  body,  nor 
to  make  themselves  ritually  unclean,  for  father, 
mother,  brother,  or  sister,  “ during  the  days  of  their 
separation. ”j*  We  read  of  a few  persons  devoted 
by  their  parents  for  life,  while  yet  unborn,  to 
this  separation.  Samson  was  one.  John  the  Baptist 
was  another.  He  was  sequestered  from  the  world, 


* Leviticus,  chapter  10,  v.  9,  10. 
f Numbers,  chapter  G,  v.  2-21. 


137 


living  a monkish,  or  a hermit,  life,  according  to  the 
ascetic  notions  of  the  Essenes,  refusing  alike  to  marry, 
to  drink  wine,  or  to  live  in  conformity  with  the  social 
life  of  Palestine. 

Inspired  by  a sublime  enthusiasm  of  prophecy,  watch- 
ing for  the  expected  Messiah,  (but  unlike  so  many 
Jews,  who  looked  for  a conquering  king,  imagining 
Him  as  coming  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from 
Bozrah,  glorious  in  his  apparel,  travelling  in  the 
greatness  of  his  strength,  having  trodden  the  wine- 
press alone,  now  trampling  the  people  in  his  anger,*) 
John, — stationed  by  the  ford  of  Jordan,  where  the 
waters  had  divided  before  the  ark,  amid  the  rich  vege- 
tation and  grateful  shade  of  this  spot  of  romantic 
beauty,  where  so  often  he  is  described  in  painting  as 
surrounded  by  multitudes  and  performing  the  initiatory 
rite  of  salvation, — recognized  and  proclaimed  “ the 
Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the 
World.” 

The  Messiah  accepted  the  recognition  and  the 
baptism  of  John.  But  though  He  did  this  honor  to 
the  prophet,  and  accepted  his  emblem  of  the  inward 
purifying  of  the  soul,  and  of  the  spiritual  and  celestial 
character  of  his  own  coming,  (as  contrasted  with  some 
fierce  apparition  of  triumphant  wrath,)  the  Saviour 

* Isaiah,  chapter  63,  v.  1-3. 

18  % 


138 


immediately  made  clear  his  own  disagreement  with 
the  dogmas  of  the  Essenes,  and  the  notions  of 
asceticism. 

Soon  after  his  baptism,  there  was  a marriage- 
feast.  Invited  to  attend,  He  joined  the  festivity. 
In  compliance  with  the  wishes  of  his  Mother, 
the  wine  having  failed,  Jesus,  by  miracle,  changed 
water  into  wine,  and  sent  it  to  the  master  of  the 
feast.  “ Thus  Jesus  performed  his  first  miracle  at 
Cana,  in  Galilee,  and  manifested  his  glory? * By 
these  two  actions,  of  emphatic  significance, — that  is,  by 
attending  the  marriage-feast  and  making  the  wine, — 
our  Lord,  with  the  utmost  publicity,  placed  himself 
in  unequivocal  antagonism  to  the  asceticism  of  Naza- 
rite  and  Essene,  prevented  his  baptism  from  being 
mistaken  for  any  profession  of  adhesion  to  the  sect, 
the  dogmas,  or  the  practices  of  John ; sanctioned  the 
domestic  tie,  which  the  Essene  contemned  ; the  use  of 
the  beverage,  which  the  Nazarite  rejected ; and  the 
friendly  enjoyment  of  innocent  festivity. 

On  no  other  theory  can  we  understand  the  meaning 
of  his  joining  the  feast,  or  working  the  miracle.  In 
the  very  hour  of  festivity  the  dreadful  future  of  his 
Passion  was  presented  to  his  soul.  He  sympathized 
with  the  social  joy  of  others  ; but  He  was  sad  himself. 

* Gospel  Af  St.  John,  chapter  2,  y.  11.  Norton’s  translation. 


139 


Nor  can  we  regard  the  miracle  as  wrought  either  to 
display  his  power,  or  simply  for  the  hilarity  of  the 
feast.  It  would  be  to  degrade  the  character  of  our 
Lord,  and  imagine  motives  to  which  He  never  yielded 
in  the  use  of  his  heavenly  gifts.  If  we  perceive  in 
his  conduct  the  evident  testimony  He  bore  against 
opinions  sincerely  held  by  John,  but  of  which  He 
would  not  even  seem  to  be  the  adherent,  we  shall 
better  understand  the  spirit  of  the  occasion,  and  the 
true  character  of  our  Lord,  and  we  shall  learn  what 
Paul,  the  apostle,  learned  perhaps  from  the  story  of 
the  same  miracle,  (while  Peter  needed  its  revelation  in 
vision,)  that  “ The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and 
drink.” 

Had  Jesus  been  accessible  to  ordinary  motives,  He 
would  have  adopted,  or  at  least  indulged,  asceticism. 
It  would  have  given  Him  a party  at  the  beginning  of 
his  career.  It  would  havg  helped  Him  to  defy,  or  to 
puzzle,  the  Pharisees,  and  to  turn  their  weapons. 
But  He  was  absorbed  in  the  infinite  purpose  of  a 
mission  which  included  all  human  nature,  all  times, 
all  places,  and  all  circumstances  of  men. 

When  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  was  a 
prisoner  in  Rome,  the  Christians  in  Colosse,  one  of 
the  Phrygian  cities,  sent  Epaphras  with  messages  of 
comfort  to  Paul.  He  returned  home  with  “ the  Epistle 


140 


to  the  Colossians  ” in  reply.  The  Greeks  had.  long 
before  the  Gospel,  introduced  their  philosophy  into 
Asia  Minor.  And,  in  Phrygia,  the  doctrines  of  both 
Plato  and  Pythagoras  found  many  disciples  ; against 
some  of  the  opinions  of  both  of  whom  the  Epistle  is 
in  part  directed.  Besides  these,  were  the  teachings  of 
Judaisers,  endeavoring  to  impress  upon  the  Christians 
Mosaic  observances.  In  order  to  attract  those  Chris- 
tians who  had  been  Platonists  or  Pythagoreans,  it  is 
supposed  that  the  Judaisers  tried  to  convince  them  that 
those  philosophers  had  themselves  been  taught  by 
the  writings  of  Moses..  Thus,  through  Judaisers,  of 
the  strictly  ritualistic,  or  formalist  and  purely  phari- 
saic  school,  and  through  others  of  the  Essene,  or 
purely  ascetic  school,  and  through  Pythagoreans  who 
carried  out  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  of  souls  to 
the  logical  conclusion  of  rejecting  the  flesh  of  animals 

as  food,  the  infant  Christian  church  of  Colosse  was  in 

7 • 

peril  of  dogmatic  demoralization.  Here,  Paul — like 
his  Master  in  the  beginning — turned  his  back  upon 
the  temptation  so  plainly  set  before  him.  He  would 
not  humor  the  peculiarities  of  any  of  these  several 
schools,  all  of  which,  though  from  different  origins, 
might  have  been  combined  in  a common  end  of  giving 
some  formal  expression  to  a higher  life,  in  which 
Greek  reason,  Oriental  mysticism  and  Jewish  rever- 


141 


ence  for  a divinely  given  ritual,  could  have  rallied 
around  Christianity  as  a common  centre.  But  the  poor 
prisoner  bound  in  Rome,  would  not  compromise  one 
iota  of  the  simplicity  and  grandeur  of  that  lofty  Faith, 
whose  deeper  meanings  and  universal  application 
none  among  the  Apostles  knew  so  well.  Therefore 
he  commanded  his  converts  to  avoid  alike  an  empty 
philosophy,  the  traditions  of  men,  and  the  elements  of 
this  world,  which  are  not  according  to  Christ.  Abjur- 
ing the  theories  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Orientalists, 
the  rites  of  Moses,  the  intercession  of  angels,  he 
warned  them  to  let  no  man  (whether  Greek  or  Jew, 
Essene,  Nazarite  or  Pythagorean,)  judge  them  in 
respect  of  meats  or  drinks  ; of  partaking  animal  food, 
or  of  drinking  wine,  in  the  temperate  repast  of 
Christian  Liberty.'* 

While  the  great  Apostle  was  willing, — in  tenderness 
to  a brother  whose  weakness  demanded  charity, — not 
to  eat  meat  nor  drink  wine,  if  by  eating  or  drinking 
he  would  lead  to  the  misapprehension  that  he  was 
recognizing  idolatrous  worship, f he  placed  that  wil- 
lingness wholly  on  the  ground  of  an  affectionate  con- 
cession, not  at  all  on  any  ground  of  any  form  of  asceti- 
cism. Had  it  been  proposed  in  the  Christian  church 

* See,  among  other  authorities  on  this  whole  subject,  “ Milman’s  History 
of  Christianity,”  and  “ MacKnight  on  the  Epistles.” 

f Romans,  chapter  14. 


142 


to  establish  asceticism  by  creed  or  discipline,  it  would 
have  aroused  the  utmost  power  reposing  in  the  might- 
iest pen  ever  held  by  human  hand. 

It  was  left  for  Mohammed,  as  a measure  of  real 
“ military  necessity,”  by  pretended  revelation,  to  ful- 
minate an  interdict.  Christianity,  the  only  Religion 
“ which  is  not  naturally  weakened  by  civilization,” 
which  “ has  traversed  the  lapse  of  ages,  acquiring  a 
new  strength  and  beauty  with  each  advance  of  civili- 
zation, and  infusing  its  beneficent  influence  into  every 
sphere  of  thought  and  action,”*  omitted  asceticism 
wholly  from  its  plan.  It  has  led  the  conquering 
march  of  humanity,  under  the  inspiration  of  its  Foun- 
der, in  obedience  to  immortal  hope  and  celestial  love  ; 
subordinating  passion  and  appetite,  not  by  the  law  of 
a carnal  commandment,  but  by  the  power  of  an  end- 
less life.  The  Gospel  of  Jesus  preached  and  testified 
by  apostles,  evangelists,  confessors  and  martyrs,  de- 
scends to  no  comparison  with  the  Koran  of  Moham- 
med, whose  sword,  succeeded  by  the  torch  of  Omar,  led 
the  hordes  of  Islam  to  the  slaughter  of  the  unbelievers. f 

* “ Rationalism  in  Europe,”  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky.  Vol.  i.,  pp.  311,  312. 
(American  edition.) 

t See,  among  other  authorities,  “ Mohammed  der  Prophet,”  [Stuttgart. 
1843,]  by  Gustav  Weil,  then  assistant-librarian,  since  1S45  Professor  of 
Oriental  Languages  in  the  University  of  Heidelberg.  At  page  140,  the 
learned  author  says  : — “The  danger  which  Mohammed  incurred  from  his 
followers  addicting  themselves  to  the  use  of  wine,  was  probably  the  occa- 
sion of  this  prohibition.”  Also,  “ Essais  sur  l’histoire  des  Arabes,”  etc., 


143 


How  much  the  Mohammedan  interdict  has  been 
worth  to  the  morality  of  Persia , (whatever  was  its 
value  under  military  organization,  on  the  march  or  in 
camp,)  may  be  learned  from  the  testimony  of  both 
travellers  and  missionaries  : — 

“ Prohibiting  the  use  of  wine  to  its  followers,  tends  to 
restrict  the  manufacture  to  those  places  where  the  Jews, 
Americans,  or  Hindoos,  form  part  of  the  population.  But 

[Paris,  1847,]  by  Armand  Pierre  Caussin  de  Perceval,  Professor  of  Arabic 
in  the  College  of  France,  vol.  Mi,  page  122,  where  he  says  : — “According 
to  the  common  opinion,  it  was  during  one  of  Mohammed’s  sieges  in  the  ter- 
ritory of  Medina,  that  he  published  the  verses  of  the  Koran  which  interdict 
wine  and  games  of  chance  to  the  faithful.” 

Frederick  von  Schlegel,  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  History, 
(Robertson’s  Translation,  Bohn’s  edition,  page  327,)  suggests  a second 
motive  of  Mohammed  in  making  the  prohibition.  He  says  : — “ Even  the 
prohibition  of  wine  was  perhaps  not  so  much  intended  for  a moral  precept, 
which,  considered  in  that  point  of  view,  would  be  far  too  severe,  as  for 
answering  a religious  design  of  the  founder ; for  he  might  hope  that  the 
express  condemnation  of  a liquid  which  forms  an  essential  element  of  the 
Christian  sacrifice,  would  necessarily  recoil  on  that  sacrifice  itself,  and  thus 
raise  an  insuperable  barrier  between  his  creed  and  the  religion  of  Christ.” 
This  motive  of  Mohammed  receives  corroboration  from  the  fact  of  his 
desire  to  proselyte  from  among  the  Jews,  and  from  the  consideration,  (to 
which,  however,  Schlegel  does  not  refer,)  that  the  prohibition  was  likely  to 
be  one  not  altogether  unacceptable  to  Jews,  by  reason  of  its  confirmation 
of  the  antithesis  between  the  Hebrew  religion  and  the  Christian  religion  on 
just  this  very  point  of  the  use  of  wine, — the  only  prohibition  of  its  use  by 
the  Mosaic  law  being  in  connection  with  the  religious  rites  of  sacrifice, 
(Leviticus,  c.  10,  v.  9,  10.)  (See  also  page  128  of  this  Argument.)  Whereas 
it  was  precisely  in  the  offering  of  the  most  significant  Christian  sacrament, 
(i.  e.,  the  Lord’s  Supper,)  that  its  use  was  expressly  ordained  by  Jesus, 
(Matthew,  e.  26,  v.  27.  Mark,  c.  14,  v.  23.)  And  it  is  most  remarkable, 
that  while  Moses  forbade  wine  only  to  the  priest,  and  then  only  when  going 
“ into  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation,”  Christianity  enjoins  the  use  of 
wine  in  the  only  sacrament  which  is  universally  administered  at  the  altar 
and  in  the  sanctuary.  So  deep  is  the  Christian  feeling  in  this  precise  rela- 
tion of  its  use  to  the  ceremonies  of  our  religion,  that  the  sale  of  wine  for 
sacramental  purposes  is  the  only  kind  of  sale  which,  by  our  prohibitory 
law,  is  free  to  all  persons,  at  all  places,  and  on  all  occasions. 


144 


tlie  Persians  have  always  been  less  scrupulous  observers 
of  this  precept  of  the  Koran  than  the  other  Mussulmans ; 
and  several  of  their  kings,  unable  to  resist  the  temptation, 
or  conceiving  themselves  above  the  law,  have  set  an 
example  of  drunkenness,  which  has  been  very  generally 
followed  by  their  subjects.  * * * At  present,  many 

persons  indulge  secretly  in  wine  and  generally  to  intem- 
perance ; as  they  can  imagine  no  pleasure  in  its  use, 
unless  it  produce  the  full  delirium  of  intoxication.  They 
flatter  themselves,  however,  that  they  diminish  the  sin  by 
drinking  only  such  as  is  made  by  infidels.  * * * The  Jews 
and  Americans  prepare  wine  on  purpose  for  the  Mohamme- 
dans by  adding  lime,  hemp  and  other  ingredients,  to  increase 
its  pungency  and  strength  : for  the  wine  that  soonest  intoxi- 
cates is  accounted  the  best,  and  the  lighter  and  more  delicate 
kinds  are  held  in  no  estimation  among  the  adherents  of  the 
prophet.”  * 

Its  moral  influence  on  Turkey , I leave  to  the  descrip- 
tion of  Lord  Bacon,  who  styles  Turkey — 

“ A cruel  Tyranny,  bathed  in  the  blood  of  their  emperors 
upon  every  succession ; a heap  of  vassals  and  slaves ; no 
nobles,  no  gentlemen,  no  freemen,  no  inheritance  of  land, 
no  stirp  of  ancient  families ; a people  that  is  without 
natural  affection,  and  as  the  scripture  saitli,  that  regardeth 
not  the  desires  of  women;  and  without  piety  or  care  toward 
their  children ; a nation  without  morality,  without  letters, 

* History  of  Ancient  and  Modern  Wines.  London,  1S24. 

See,  also,  Travels  in  Georgia  and  Persia,  by  Sir  R.  Kerr  Porter,  Yol.  i., 
p.  348.  Voyages  de  Chardin,  Tom.  ii.,  p.  67. 

And,  also,  “ Eight  Years  in  Persia,”  by  Rev.  Justin  Perkins,  (mission- 
ary,)  pp.  226,  227,  and  402. 


145 


arts  or  sciences ; that  can  scarce  measure  an  acre  of  land  or 
an  hour  of  the  day;  base  and  sluttish  in  buildings,  diet,  and 
the  like ; and  in  a word,  a very  reproach  of  human  society.”* 

The  influence  of  entire  abstinence  upon  all  the 
different  Mohammedan  nations  and  races,  to  the 
extent  the  Mohammedan  superstition  has  enforced  it 
on  the  devout,  I leave  to  the  able  writer  of  the  article 
on  “ Food,”  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Brittanica. 

“ Many  men,  as  the  natives  of  Bengal  and  other  countries, 
live  entirely  upon  vegetables ; and  others,  as  the  Esquimaus, 
altogether  upon  animal  food,  while  most  examples  of  the 
human  species  use  a mixed  diet  of  animal  and  vegetable 
matter  ; and  the  majority  of  people  find  it  most  convenient 
to  obtain  a portion  of  their  supply  of  carbon  from  fermented 
drinks,  or  from  drinks  distilled  from  such.  The  number  of 
people  who  abstain  from  fermented  drinks,  however,  proves 
that  the  requisite  amount  of  carbon  may  be  obtained  from 
saccharine  or  oleaginous  compounds,  the  deficiency  being  in 
general,  probably,  made  up  from  the  latter.  There  appears , 
nevertheless , to  be  little  doubt  but  that , in  order  to  attain  the 
full  perfection  of  the  mental  and  bodily  faculties , an  admix- 
ture of  animal  and  vegetable  articles  of  food  is  essential ; 
and  also  that  a portion  of  the'  carbonaceous  supply  should  be 
derived  from  alcoholic  drinks.  Those  who  live  almost 
entirely  upon  animal  food  become  stunted  in  growth  and 
liable  to  the  ravages  of  scurvy,  and  their  mental  and  moral 
faculties  are  blunted  and  sensual ; those  who  consume  only 

t Lord  Bacon’s  Works,  (Boston  edition,)  Vol.  xiii.,  p.  198,  “ Touching  a 
Holy  War.” 


19 


146 


vegetables  are  generally  inactive  and  listless,  and  incapable 
of  either  active  bodily  or  mental  labor ; and  independently 
of  other  objections , there  is  reason  to  fear  that  the  offspring 
of  those  who  abstain  entirely  from  fermented  drinks , become 
in  a generation  or  two  enervated  in  mind  and  body.  It  is 
probably  in  this  last  mentioned  manner  that  the  decadence  of 
the  different  Mohammedan  nations  and  races  is  to  be 
accounted  for , at  least  in  part.”  * 

If  you  could  enforce  tlie  outward  observance  of 
apparent  conformity  on  a cowering  and  hypocritical 
population  of  unwilling  subjects,  judge  you,  by  the 
testimony  of  Dr.  Clarke,  and  of  the  ministers  of 
religion,  who  know  full  well  the  workings  of  this  law 
in  the  secret  places,  the  devastation  you  will  carry  in 
its  train.  I desire,  above  all  things,  to  bring  the  evil 
to  the  surface.  It  is  safer  on  the  skin  than  at  the 
heart  or  in  the  brain.  And  bad  as  is  the  unguarded 
use  of  “ rebellious  liquors,”  it  is  safer — a hundred 
times  safer — to  bear  with  it,  until  it  can  be  met  by 
curing  the  inward  disease  of  which  drunkenness  is  a 
manifestation,  rather  than  to  push  the  determined  con- 
sumers of  narcotics  to  the  terrible  alternative  of  opium. 

Literature  is  full  of  testimonies  against  such  legisla- 
tion. You  find  them  in  essays,  in  speeches,  in  history, 
uttered  by  Cromwell,  by  Milton,  by  Burke,  by  Macaulay, 

* Encyclopaedia  Brittanica,  (Stli  edition)  ; Article  “ Food  : ” subdivision, 
“ The  Principles  of  Dietetics  ; ” Vol.  is.,  p.  768. 


147 


and  I know  not  how  many  besides.  “ Though  you  take 
from  a covetous  man  all  his  treasure,”*  says  Milton, 
“ he  has  one  jewel  left,  ye  cannot  bereave  him  of  his 
covetousness.  Banish  all  objects  of  lust,  shut  up  all 
youth  into  the  severest  discipline  that  can  be  exercised 
in  any  hermitage,  ye  cannot  make  them  chaste  that 
came  not  thither  so.  # # * Look  how  much  we 
expel  of  sin,  so  much  we  expel  of  virtue.  * * # This 
justifies  the  high  providence  of  God,  who,  though  he 
commands  us  temperance,  justice,  continence,  yet 
pours  out  before  us  even  to  profuseness,  all  desirable 
things.  * * # Why  should  we  then  affect  a rigor 
contrary  to  the  manner  of  God  and  of  Nature.”  * 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen,  I have  spoken  boldly, 
as  one  of  the  advocates  of  thirty  thousand  voters  of 
Massachusetts,  who,  without  noise  or  observation, 
memorialized  the  General  Court.  Their  opinions  have 
been  illustrated  by  more  than  one  hundred  witnesses, 
from  all  quarters  of  the  Commonwealth.  They  are 
of  nearly  all  professions  and  callings,  men  of  learned 
pursuits  and  those  devoted  to  the  cares  of  busy  life, 

* See  “Treasures  from  the  Prose  Writings  of  Milton,”  (by  Ticknor  & 
Fields,)  passages  from  the  “ Areopagitica,”  the  “Defence  of  the  People  of 
England,”  etc.,  pp.  112,  114,  115,  136,  158,  and  345-6. 

Burke’s  Speeches,  etc.,  (Little  & Brown’s  Ed.,)  Yol.  v.,  pp.  163, 164. 

Macaulay’s  History  of  England,  5th  Yol.,  c.  23,  p.  41.  (Harper’s 

octavo  edition.) 


148 


scholars,  clergymen  and  statesmen,  cultivators  in  the 
various  sciences,  and  of  wide  renown,  men  of  venerable 
years,  and  those  of  younger  age.  They  are  of  the 
metropolis,  the  interior,  the  mountains  of  Berkshire, 
the  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  the  shores  of  Essex, 
the  Islands  and  the  Cape.  They  represent  every 
phase  of  industry,  of  philanthropy  and  of  wisdom. 
You  heard,  at  the  beginning,  the  eminent  gentleman, 
my  honored  associate,  [Hon.  Linus  Child,]  whose  life- 
long devotion  to  whatever  is  best  in  morality,  in  patri- 
otism and  religion,  has  made  him  a tit  exemplar  for  all 
younger  men  of  generous  aspirations.  When  such  as 
he  have  spoken,  I might  well  have  been  content  with 
silence.  With  a deep  sense  of  the  importance  of  this 
inquiry,  and  of  the  issue  it  involves,  forgetting  all  things 
but  the  honor  and  welfare  of  our  Commonwealth  and 
her  People,  I dedicate  this  offering  of  gratitude  and 
duty  to  the  Future  of  Massachusetts. 


k 


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